The Man With the Twisted Mind
by Agatha Doyle
Summary: Seq to 'The Sign of Fourteen.' Harriett must face two new challenges - Breaking Holmes's horrific cocaine habit, and discovering who it is that seems to want her out of the way. UPDATE: Dedicated to actor Edward Hardwicke, a great Watson who died recently
1. Prologue

**Note from Agatha: This is the third in my series of Harriett Winchester stories. You'll probably need to have read the previous two to really 'get' this one. A lot of things are going to start tying together. :)**

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><p>Even in the most distant reaches of my memory, I can never recall ever wanting to be like everyone else. Those who have known me and read my previous accounts of my adventures with Sherlock Holmes will know that, in my youth, I was a somewhat unorthodox girl – One who did not pay much heed to rules and traditions, or to what anyone else may have thought of her (Indeed, it annoyed me greatly when I found myself hankering after Holmes's approval, for I had never felt the need to impress anyone before, and regarded such a feeling as being a hindrance.)<p>

It is perhaps this complete free-spiritedness (which my husband rather flatteringly tells me that I still possess, even as I approach my fiftieth birthday,) which leaves me at a loss when I see my two sweet daughters desperately, and with great determination, following fads that they are instructed by the fashionable magazines and hoards of other girls to follow. I call them 'fads' as though they were a perfectly harmless thing – But it was with a deep sense of horror that I recently discovered a small quantity of cocaine in my son's possession (which I believe has also become a fashion among the young people,) for it brought to the surface of my mind a series of unpleasant memories that I have sought desperately to bury over the years, but to no avail.

I thought never to write of this horrible incident that took place during my years at Baker Street. It is amongst the most heart wrenching and terrible memories of my life (enough even to rival that terrifying day at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, the circumstances of which I shall perhaps find the courage to write up some day.) But I recount it now for the sake of my son, and for anyone else who has ever felt the temptation of turning to that dreadful vice, so that they may know how it almost destroyed one of the finest men I have ever known...


	2. Chapter 1

It all began just after our return from the bizarre Strange Hall case, on the 12th April 1891. We arrived home on the afternoon of the 11th, whereon Mrs. Hudson greeted us with a warm smile and a wonderful lunch, and Gladstone the bulldog sat in his basket with a very sullen expression on his face (He had no doubt enjoyed the peace and quiet whilst we had been away.) I had observed Holmes's rather low mood and lack of appetite that afternoon, but thought little of it, as he didn't eat much anyway, and his grim mood was understandable, considering the rather dark and sinister case we had just completed. Watson evidently noticed his friend's depression aswell, for he made a point of presenting several letters and telegrams which had arrived, requesting Holmes's help on a case. Surprisingly, these failed to cheer Holmes up, and I went to bed that night concerned.

Holmes sat up smoking all night, the malodorous tobacco smoke keeping me awake, even in my room upstairs. It was clear that he was very anxious about something, for he only ever used his Calabash pipe in times of extreme stress (The only other time I had seen him use it was a couple of days after my arrival in Baker Street, when a bullet had come whistling through the sitting room window.) At about midnight, I crept out on to the landing, and peered down the stairs at the sitting room door. It was ajar.

"Go to bed, Miss Winchester, it's alright!" Holmes's voice suddenly called from within, and I started, and dashed back in to my room.

As I stood dressing in my room on the morning of the 12th April (the morning when events really began to take a turn for the worse,) there suddenly came an almighty boom from the bottom of the stairs, followed by a shout that sounded distinctly like Watson. I was also struck by a thick, suffocating smell, like burning wood and gunpowder, and dashed down the stairs with a handkerchief pressed to my nose and mouth, to see plumes of crimson smoke pouring out of the sitting room doorway. At first, I feared that a fire had broken out, but a moment later I heard the sound of the window being thrown open, and something crashing on to the street below, before Holmes and Watson emerged from the smokescreen – Watson fairly dragging Holmes by his arm, while Holmes (his face and hands streaked with black soot,) clutched a leather-bound notebook in his hand.

"What on _earth _were you doing?" Watson choked, angrily at Holmes. "Mrs. Hudson will be beside herself if you've stained the wallpaper with that foul smoke!"

"Not to worry, Watson, this smoke leaves no stain, as was the point of my experiment," Holmes said, lightly, seemingly unaffected by the smoke. "I'll explain it to you in the street, it will take quite a while for this all to clear. Ah, good morning Miss Winchester, you're looking well today..."

We hastened down the stairs (Gladstone picking up his favourite old boot, and following behind,) and emerged out on to the street, to be greeted by a crowd of startled faces, all gathered around the large, brass object which Watson had hurled out of the sitting room window. It appeared to be a censer of some sort.

"I hope to heaven this has something to do with a case, Holmes!" Watson muttered through gritted teeth, as he smiled, apologetically at the people around us.

"Naturally, my dear fellow," Holmes said, completely oblivious to the streetful of disapproving looks he was getting. "As you know, I prefer to keep myself busy and my mind active. The thought process falls in to decay if one does not exercise it regularly."

"Rather like Gladstone," I commented, looking down at the fat, lazy old dog, who was now sprawled on the doorstep, half-heartedly chewing at the old boot. Holmes went on;

"One of the letters which you presented me with last night was from a Captain Victor James Ethelred – I have looked him up in my index, he is the third in a line of three sons from the distinguished Ethelred family, and took on the traditional role of the youngest son by entering military service. Apparently his fiancée, a Miss Elizabeth Howard, has disappeared – Quite literally in a puff of smoke. I was attempting to recreate the smokescreen, and had just succeeded, when you hurled my efforts out of the window, Watson."

The colour of Watson's face resembled that of a lobster who has just been caught in an embarrassing situation. With a slow creeping smile that brought a peculiar sparkle to his eyes, Holmes held up his leather-bound notebook.

"Luckily, I was able to save my notes," he said, relieving the doctor. "Now, if you will excuse me, I must brave my room in order to write a letter to Captain Ethelred. After that, I shall make a visit to the Imperial Science Museum for some further tests..."

"_Mr. Holmes!_" Mrs. Hudson's voice suddenly squealed from inside No. 221b. "_Mr. Holmes, what have you done to my house?_"

There were few things in this world that could really frighten Sherlock Holmes – In all my life, I never saw him flinch at the sound of a gun, nor flee at the sight of a vicious dog, nor even turn pale at the threats of a brutal criminal to break every bone in his body. But if there was one thing that would have Holmes haring down the street in terror, it was the iron voice of his good landlady! With a hasty word telling us that he would perhaps visit the Science Museum first, Holmes quickly dived back in to the hallway to collect his hat and cane, and in a split second had vanished in to the crowd.

After spending a good few minutes apologising to each of our disgruntled neighbours in turn, and reassuring them that it would never happen again (a promise which many of them looked far from convinced at as they went on their way, muttering,) Watson picked up the shattered remains of the large brass censer, and carried them back in to the house. I looked at them, curiously, as he dropped them on to the carpet in the hallway.

"This looks like it could be interesting," I commented, for I was just as interested in Holmes's chemical experiments as I was in his detective work (He had a large and impressive chemistry set erected on its own table in the sitting room, which I had been warned, on pain of death, _never _to touch. Naturally, I took great pleasure in examining the test tubes and tentatively sniffing the oddly coloured liquids and powders when Holmes was not in the room.)

"Yes," Watson sighed, wearily, looking about at the deep red smokescreen that still lingered in the house; "Which means he'll be devoting every ounce of his energy to it. I had hoped that he would allow himself a short rest before taking on another case, Strange Hall was a most unpleasant experience...But boredom always strikes quickly with him. I suppose I should be thankful that he has his work to keep him busy, or else he'd be...Well," he stopped suddenly in the middle of his sentence, and took up his doctor's bag, smiling down at me; "I'll see you this afternoon, Miss Winchester. I'm afraid there's been a bit of a local epidemic of Scarlet Fever, I've got several children visiting the surgery today."

After bidding Watson goodbye, I decided to go for a walk in the open air to escape the smoke-filled house, and took myself around the corner to Oxford Street, with Gladstone keeping a slow, protesting pace several feet behind me on the end of his leash (I had become accustomed to taking him with me whenever I went out alone, although I knew he would not be of much use should I encounter any trouble.) I wandered about with my four-legged companion for a while, once again marvelling at the dirty beauty and splendid ridiculousness of London life, before making my leisurely way back to Baker Street, purchasing a bunch of lucky heather from a woman as I went, and placing it in my hat. As I walked through the front door, I came across Mrs. Hudson on her hands and knees in the vestibule, viciously scrubbing at the floor tiles.

"Mrs. Hudson!" I cried, looking down at the old woman in horror, while Gladstone carelessly took himself over to a pile of laundry outside Mrs. Hudson's parlour, and collapsed on to it with a yawn; "You mustn't do that, not at..!"

I blushed suddenly, as I realised it was very rude to imply that a lady was old (despite the fact that it was obvious Mrs. Hudson was of mature years.)

"Not at my age you mean, dear?" Mrs. Hudson said, looking up at me with a sweet smile. "Not to worry, my back's quite used to it after cleaning this house for all these years. And besides, it's only – _No, Gladstone, off the laundry! _– It's only when Mr. Holmes is all locked away upstairs that I can get anything done. He's usually marching about, scattering tobacco and spilling coffee, allowing filthy street urchins to invade my rooms, completely ruining the place with his experiments..."

"But Mr. Holmes has gone to the Science Museum, hasn't he?" I asked, hanging up my coat and hat.

"No Miss Winchester, he came back just a few minutes after you and Dr. Watson had left. And he was timing himself, too – I heard him dashing up the stairs when I was in my bathroom, which is where I would be least likely to hear him coming in. But my ears are just as good as they've ever been," she added, proudly. "If he thinks he's going to escape a scolding for that wretched smoke-bomb of his, then he doesn't know my name's Mary Jane Hudson!"

I threw a curious glance up the stairs. Why would Holmes tell Watson and I that he was visiting the Science Museum, only to return home a few minutes later? It must have had something to do with the case.

"I'll just take Gladstone upstairs, Mrs. Hudson," I said, picking up the weary dog; "I'll keep him out of your way, and make sure he doesn't sit on your laundry again."

"He'd better not," Mrs. Hudson said, sternly, frowning at the dog. "That mutt is well overdue for a bath!" Gladstone's ears pricked up at this, and he made a whimpering noise to voice his displeasure.

With Gladstone in my arms, I cautiously crept up the stairs to the landing, and silently placed the dog on the floor. There was something about this case Holmes clearly did not want either Watson or myself to know, and the thought of learning a secret overruled my fear of Holmes finding me prying about in his room, and subjecting me to a lecture on the sacredness of a person's private space. Still being careful not to make a sound, I approached Holmes's bedroom door, and slowly twisted the handle. The smell of old tobacco, newspaper print, the lingering fumes of coffee, and another scent that was unique to Holmes wafted out as I opened the door just an inch. I had never seen Holmes's room before, and I could feel the excitement building...When suddenly, nerves got the better of me, and I pulled the door closed with a disappointed sigh. For some reason, intruding in to Holmes's room felt like desecrating a sacred temple.

My curiosity still burning, I went in to the sitting room with the intention of reading one of Holmes's monographs to keep myself amused (I had read five of them now, but still had another fifteen articles to get through,) and was somewhat surprised and rather embarrassed to find Holmes standing at his desk with his back to me. I did not want to face him after my shameful attempt to sneak in to his room (which he would no doubt read on my features,) and, as he did not appear to have heard me, I made to quickly leave the sitting room, and disappear upstairs – But as I did so, I noticed something rather odd.

Holmes had removed his jacket, and was standing at the desk with his shirt sleeves rolled up, revealing his pale, sinewy forearms, while his hands fumbled with a small, gold key that was on his watch chain, trying to unlock the drawer in his desk. He appeared to be having some difficulty, and I was astonished to see that his hands, which were usually so capable and steady, were trembling as wildly as the leaves on a young tree in the wind.

"What are you doing?" I asked (somewhat bluntly, I now realise.)

Holmes jumped, violently, fairly banging in to the desk, and grabbed his jacket as though I had just stumbled in to find him naked.

"Miss Winchester," he hissed in venomous tones, as he turned to look at me with an ugly expression of both anger and fear; "Perhaps you could enlighten me? In Virginia, is there such a thing as the practice of _knocking _before entering a room?"

It seemed that I had merely annoyed him again, and I thought little of it (In my then short – and also thought temporary – time of residence at 221b, I seemed to have become Holmes's main source of annoyance, unfamiliar as I was with the social expectations and demands of London...let alone of Sherlock Holmes.) I was about to respond to his rudeness with one of my usual flashes of temper, when I suddenly realised just how ghastly and pallid Holmes truly looked. His face was sickly pale, with beads of perspiration glistening on his brow, and one of his hands was gripping the handle of the desk drawer so tightly that it seemed the knuckles would soon split through the skin.

"Holmes?" I said, with a mounting sense of alarm as I looked at him; "What's wrong?"

Holmes clamped both hands firmly over the desk drawer, and looked at me with a truly horrific expression.

"Nothing!" he said, firmly. "Now, will you please go away, I have work to do!"

I could not have been more chagrined if he had slapped me in the face. Aiming a violent kick at the door, I flustered out of the sitting room, and stormed up the stairs to my room, feeling confused and not a little hurt.

However, after a few minutes of schooling my anger, I began to wonder...What was the cause of this irrational outburst? It was most uncharacteristic of Holmes; and what was the meaning behind his blanched face, his fevered brow, his trembling hand? But what aroused my curiosity the most was the fact that it all seemed to be because I had found him about to open his desk. What was there in that desk drawer that he was so intent on hiding from me?


	3. Chapter 2

That afternoon, when Watson returned from his surgery, I took him quietly aside, and told him of Holmes's strange behaviour that morning, and together, we pondered the cause.

"It'll be this Ethelred case," Watson said, grimly. Then, lowering his voice as though he were afraid the very hat stand might hear, he added, "I've been reading up on the Ethelred family during my time at the surgery. I know Holmes said they were distinguished, but he completely failed to mention that they were the fourth wealthiest family in England outside of the royal circle! They're one of the oldest bloodlines, too – Their name can be traced all the way back to the Saxon period. You really mustn't take it to offense, Miss Winchester, Holmes always feels a certain pressure over cases such as these. You saw him during the Strange Hall case."

"But he looked _ill_, Watson!" I insisted. "His face was as white as a ghost, you should have seen it! Maybe you should examine him?"

Watson laughed a sardonic laugh.

"I doubt he'd allow that!" he said. "It's as much as I can do to get him to eat and sleep once in a while! He hasn't the least concern for his own well-being, especially when he has a case in hand. The affair before the case of the Reigate Squires had him practically at death's door, I remember, and he _still _insisted on hunting down the murderers of William Kirwan himself, rather than leaving it to the police. And as for taking my advice..."

Here I noticed a particularly scornful look come to Watson's face, and I could well imagine how frustrated he must have been, being the doctor of a man who put his work before his own state of health;

"Sometimes he can be as dismissive of my medical knowledge as he is of my writing skills. When I tell him he has a severe concussion, he calls it a mild headache. When I diagnose pneumonia, he insists it's only a cold. When I inform him that the 'slight discomfort' in his arm is a broken wrist, he informs me that I am as over-protective as a grandmother. Some nights I expect to come home and find him bleeding to death, only for him to tell me that he has suffered a paper cut!" Watson's words were far from reassuring.

"But if there was something _terribly_ wrong, Watson," I said, anxiously, "if it was something that could...could threaten his life, he would tell you, wouldn't he?"

A rather hurt expression crossed Watson's eyes as he pondered the question.

"I think," he sighed, gloomily, unbuttoning his long overcoat, "that even if Holmes were on the brink of death, I would be the last to know of it."

I felt a strong twinge of pity for the doctor. He wasn't just Holmes's physician, he was his friend – quite possibly the most loyal and patient friend that a man as trying Holmes could have – and I knew how hurtful it would be for him to think that the detective held little value or thought for him. After all, Holmes had been cold enough towards me, his own cousin. I sometimes thought (and cried a little at the thought,) that he hated the very sight of me.

"Don't say that, Watson," I said, laying a hand on his arm. "Holmes trusts you above anyone else. He values you. I'm sure if he hasn't mentioned anything about being ill to you, then I must just be worrying myself over nothing. I think I interrupted him when he was doing something important, that's all, he was opening that drawer in his desk that he always keeps locked..."

Watson suddenly shot me a look of pure horror.

"His drawer?" he gasped, and I was confused and somewhat alarmed to see an appalled look in his eyes. "_His desk drawer? _You're quite certain of that?"

"Yes," I said, frowning. "The key to it is the one on his watch chain, isn't it? He was trying to fit it in the lock when I came in, but his hands were trembling so badly..."

I could feel that all too familiar sense of dread building as I looked in to Watson's large, panicked eyes, and I realised that whatever that drawer contained had to be shut away from daylight forever, lest it destroy everything in sight. I knew that whenever I looked on it now, I would see it as a Pandora's Box, containing all the sins and evil deeds of the world.

"It's nothing you need to concern yourself with, Miss Winchester," Watson said at last, but the falsehood in his expression was all too obvious. "I shall deal with Holmes. You must wait here!" (It would be many more years before either Watson or Holmes realised that those four words were in a completely foreign language to me.)

He dropped his coat, leaving it where it lay, and then hurried off up the stairs, muttering almost angrily to himself. Fearful, but also intrigued, I quickly gathered up Watson's coat and placed it on its usual hook, before taking off after him (naturally.) At the top of the stairs, however, I waited, out of sight, for a moment. I knew that if either of them saw me, they would either cease to talk completely, with Watson declaring that they would 'finish the matter later,' or else begin to talk in the infuriating code that people sometimes use when they are trying to convince other people in the room that they are discussing nothing of importance (which often only draws more attention to their conversation.) As it happened, I only managed to hear Watson yelling, with a passion in his voice that I would never have thought possible of such a mild-mannered man, "Holmes! How dare you..!" before the sitting room door was slammed shut.

The door was not particularly sturdy, however, and the argument was loud enough to be heard from next door, let alone from a few feet away. Holmes, of course, had warned me against eavesdropping before, but, given the circumstances, I felt I simply _had _to know what was going on. With all my instincts compelling me, I cautiously approached the door, and listened, catching the end of Watson's sentence as I did so;

"...when we have a lady in the house!"

"You can scarcely call her a lady, Watson!" was Holmes's scornful reply. "She's a mere child!"

I glared, reproachfully at the door, although it was a glare that was intended for Holmes.

"Precisely!" Watson cried. "And would you do such a thing in front of a child?"

"Watson!" Holmes sounded horrified. "You don't honestly believe that I would allow Miss Winchester to witness such a thing, do you?"

"But it has always been your opinion that there are no ethical qualms regarding your _habit_," Watson said, sardonically, fairly spitting out the last word. "As you so often like to tell me, you are breaking no laws and harming nobody. Never mind the dozens of times I have told you that you are in fact harming _yourself _with your..."

"I would not go in to too much detail, my dear doctor," Holmes said, suddenly. "As I understand it, you wish to preserve Miss Winchester's innocence – what little of it I believe there really is left to preserve – by keeping my secret from her. You might, therefore, wish to withhold the fatal word, as I am sure she is hovering outside the door as we speak."

I could have cursed Sherlock Holmes sometimes.

"Are you sure it is not you that wishes to keep your 'secret' from her, Holmes?" Watson asked, pointedly. I could almost hear Holmes's double-take.

"What on earth do you mean, Watson?" he said, in a surprisingly uncomfortable tone.

There was a fierce pause, in which the air became heavy and still, as it does when two people glare at each other in the middle of a confrontation.

"I mean that you have twice expressed shame over your practice, my dear Holmes," Watson said at last, although his voice was a great deal softer, and I had to press my ear against the door in order to hear. "When I first discovered your dangerous habit, you thought nothing of _administering _yourself in front of me, and even of offering it to me, despite my disapproval. Now you refer to it as your 'secret', and react with absolute horror when Miss Winchester nearly discovers you. Indeed, I have not the slightest idea why you would even crave it now, seeing as you have a case to keep you entertained." There was another brief, intense pause. "Could it be that you have lost control?"

I could not help but feel a glow of admiration for Watson. I had learned very early on in my acquaintance with Sherlock Holmes that it was nigh on impossible to outsmart him in a verbal battle; and the good doctor had just beaten him in to a long moment of uncomfortable silence! Fear and frustration were beginning to mingle within me, and I felt that at any moment I would be forced to storm in to the room, and demand to know exactly what was going on.

"Your concern is quite unnecessary, Watson," Holmes said, in his usual, demure manner. "I have not lost control. I can cease my _habit _whenever I see fit. As for Miss Winchester..."

"_Unnecessary?_" Watson sounded beyond furious. "Holmes, please, be reasonable! Think of your health, think of your mind..!"

Watson's voice was beginning to crack audibly; not only with anger, my ears informed me, but with sorrow. He was choking back tears!

"I'll talk no more of this, Watson," Holmes said, quietly. "You are as suffocating as the worst of mothers, and as wet and naive as the very young girl who stands outside our sitting room door. Good day."

"That is not fair, Holmes..."

"Leave me _alone_, Watson! Good day!"

The sitting room door swung open, and the tall, looming figure of Sherlock Holmes was revealed, his face set in a stony expression. He looked, threateningly down at me, but I stood my ground, unsuccessfully attempting to fight back the burning hot tears that were welling up in my eyes.

"And _you_," I spat, jabbing a finger, forcefully in to his stomach, "are as cruel as my stepmother, and the most arrogant man I ever met!"

Holmes gave a sneer of disgust, and walked, coolly past me, leaving me feeling utterly dejected. Watson came running to the doorway, and the two of us watched Holmes stroll down the stairs, his head held, haughtily in the air. A minute later, we heard the bone-shuddering crash of the front door, and a long, painful silence rang through No. 221b. In that moment, I honestly hoped that Holmes would never come back.


	4. Chapter 3

As Watson and I sat down to dinner a full three hours later, with Holmes's chair bereft and empty (though it was often empty, as he rarely took dinner with us,) I still had not changed my mind. Mrs. Hudson said nothing as she placed the dishes down on the table, but I knew from the worried expression on her face, and from the relatively short distance between the sitting room and her parlour downstairs, that her excellent ears had heard everything. It was as we were finishing dinner, however, and Watson was pulling up his armchair to sit by the fire with a whisky and soda in hand (an evening ritual that Holmes often joined him in from his own armchair on the opposite side of the fireplace,) that I began to feel the first faint stirrings of concern. As arrogant and infuriating as Sherlock Holmes could be, his presence in so small an apartment was always dominating, and to have it suddenly missing was like looking up to see an unusually empty shelf, with a clean patch in the dust from where its contents used to sit.

Ten o'clock came around, and I found myself pacing back and forth to the windows, looking out and searching for any sign of Holmes. Watson stared, listlessly in to the fire, his whisky and soda still untasted, while Gladstone rested his huge, wrinkled snout on his lap. It was obvious that he had had exactly the same expectations as I – Holmes would sulk for a few hours, then come home, confine himself to his room until Watson insisted he come out, and then carry on with his case as though nothing had ever happened. I had never _really _wanted him to leave and never come back, and the fact that he had not yet returned was rather worrying. By eleven o'clock, I was close to tears, and could think of nothing but my final, awful words to Holmes, and how beastly I had been to him. I sat and looked at his beautiful Stradivarius lying in the corner, and wished, with all my heart, for him to come home.

Two hours later, he did. Watson had insisted that I retire for the night at a quarter past eleven, but decided against going to bed himself (The excuse he gave was that he had a book that he wanted to finish reading, but I couldn't help but notice, as I left the sitting room to go upstairs, that the book in question had been open at exactly the same page for more than an hour.) After lying in bed, contemplating the same patch of ceiling for nearly two hours, my ears at last heard the sound they had been listening so anxiously for – Holmes's voice at the foot of the stairs. His exact words were indistinguishable (he was most likely talking to Watson,) but there was no mistaking those icy, velvet tones, and I felt a wave of relief wash over me as I realised he was safely home. Sleep came easily after that, but my peace still felt laced with a hint of concern, and I knew in the back of my mind that this mysterious matter was not yet over.

The next morning, after sleeping rather late, I quickly dressed myself and dashed downstairs, intent on having a word with Watson before he left for his surgery. But I was too late. He had gone, and so with him had gone any chance of learning what the fuss of the previous afternoon had been about. Hang it all! However, sitting in my room all day, restless with impatience, wasn't going to bring the hour of Watson's return any closer than it already was, I reasoned. It was better that I find something to occupy myself, and so, realising that I was a little hungry, I stepped in to the sitting-room to sit down to breakfast.

Moments after crossing the threshold, however, I wished that I had stayed upstairs. Holmes was seated on the settee with the _'Times'_ sprawled across his lap, his black clay pipe between his lips. For a moment I stood stock still, wondering if he had heard me come in. Would he still be angry with me for my eavesdropping of the previous day? I decided not to risk it, and so quietly turned to leave the room.

"Well, good morning, Miss Winchester," Holmes said suddenly, and I froze, mouthing a silent curse. He _had _heard me, worst luck! "Step over here, please; I want to have a word with you."

His tones were calm and even, but that by no means meant that he wasn't about to unleash the fires of hell on me! Holmes's voice seldom reflected what he was thinking (a trick which he had also mastered with his eyes,) as he often delivered some of his most frank and cutting insults in a neutral and sometimes bored manner. With a hammering heart, I approached Holmes with my head lowered, and my fingers twisted, anxiously together.

"You really mustn't knot your fingers like that, Miss Winchester, it does not lend to creating the aura of serenity that a lady must have," Holmes said, severely, fishing in his pocket for something. "And stand up straight and look a person in the eyes when they are addressing you! Now, I have a gift for you."

I looked up, startled, as Holmes presented me with a small, black cardboard box. I stared, rather dumbly for a moment, before realising that yes, he was being completely sincere! Not knowing what to say, I rather hesitantly took the box, and lifted the lid to find a pair of concert tickets.

"The composer Tchaikovsky is performing his own works at the Theatre Royal tonight," he said, while I stared in awe. "It was my intention to accompany Watson, but I find myself detained by my work. I should hate for the ticket to go wasted."

It suddenly struck me that my mouth was wordlessly opening and closing like a fishes, and I promptly snapped it shut, and looked up at Holmes. He frowned in response to my thunderstruck expression.

"You seemed to be showing a great appreciation for my violin music," he explained. "I thought that perhaps you would enjoy the evening. But, if you do not wish to go, I am sure Watson would not – "

"No!" I said, quickly, drawing back the box with the precious tickets, just as he was reaching to take it back. "No, I would love to go with Watson, Holmes. Thank you very much."

It was then that I began to grow suspicious. Tchaikovsky performing his own works in London? This was a rare event indeed. Holmes was an avid musician, and the thought of missing such an event, even for his much loved work, would surely have been disappointing to him...So why was I detecting a trace of eagerness in his face and manner? It was most unlike Holmes to show any emotion, but occasionally, in certain, intense moments – when he looked upon the body of a murdered innocent, or when the pieces to the puzzle of a bemusing case began to fit together, or when he was swept away in the midst of his violin playing – faint glimmers of his inner feelings could be seen. Cracks in the marble. He seemed desperate for me to take the tickets. Rather than confront Holmes with my suspicions, however, I decided to play along, making a mental note to inform Watson of my observations later.

"Excellent," Holmes said, looking thoroughly pleased – or was it relieved? – as he turned to his desk. "Just be sure that you do not wear your hair long, as you are now, Miss Winchester. The theatre demands a certain standard of deportment."

With his back turned to me, I took the opportunity to study him carefully, watching his every movement, and searching for some sign of why he seemed to want Watson and I out of the house. What I saw worried me.

Holmes was trying to busy himself with the papers on his desk, sorting them in to neat piles (which was certainly not his habit,) but it was clear that his trembling hands were very anxious to open the desk drawer, for his fingers kept straying to the handle, and drumming on the desk top above it. That drawer again! There was clearly some frightful secret locked away inside it, but I almost didn't want to believe it. Sherlock Holmes was an honourable man – Proud, and vain, and unpredictable, and rather insensitive, but honourable all the same. What hideous secret could he have to hide?


	5. Chapter 4

**Note from Agatha: Prepare for long, off-the-wall chapter, and a very weird Holmes.**

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><p>Having never been to the theatre before, I asked Mrs. Hudson to help me with the 'certain standard of deportment', as Holmes put it, that was apparently to be expected of me, and the dear sweet lady seemed overjoyed at the idea. I spent the next hour watching and listening in amazement, as Mrs. Hudson flung various outfits out of my wardrobe, explaining the positive and negative points of each one, and elegantly arranged my hair as though she were a master-sculptor moulding clay. By the end of her ministrations, however, I must admit that I sparkled like a jewel, and Watson made a point of commenting that night that I had never looked lovelier. Mrs. Hudson had chosen for me a velvet dress of lapis lazuli blue, with a glittering necklace of equally blue beads, white silk opera gloves, a black velvet cloak, lined with beautiful ivory silk, and a jewel-bright peacock feather, tucked in the curls of my auburn hair.<p>

"Well, you look absolutely splendid, Miss Winchester!" said Watson, who was looking very well presented himself in his white tie attire, with a gleaming black cloak lined with forest green silk, and what appeared to be a brand new top hat. "I must say, Mrs. Hudson, I had no idea you could work such wonders."

"I had quite a pearl to work with in the first place, Doctor, believe me," Mrs. Hudson said, beaming at me, and I felt that I was turning quite scarlet under their compliments! "It's a pity Mr. Holmes won't come out to see her. What on earth is he doing in there, Dr. Watson? He's been in there all day!"

We all three gave puzzling looks to Holmes's bedroom door (the man on the other side no doubt hearing every word.) At around two o'clock that day, Holmes had finished his lunch, gotten up from the table, wiped his mouth with a linen napkin, and then strolled in to his bedroom with a large amount of writing materials tucked under his arm, locking the door behind him. We had then heard the sound of another key turning in its lock, and realised that Holmes had also locked his connecting door to the landing. After that, no sounds whatsoever had come from the room, and Holmes had remained completely sealed in all day, not even slipping a note under the door or responding to Watson's questions with knocks, as he sometimes did when he confined himself to his room, and the good doctor wanted to make sure that his friend was still alive.

"Whatever it is, Mrs. Hudson, I feel that he is best left to it!" Watson said with a sigh. "This is a case that Mr. Holmes clearly wishes to take alone. Miss Winchester and I will be back shortly after nine. Come along, Miss Winchester."

With a final, anxious glance at Holmes's bedroom door, I took Watson's arm, and the two of us stepped on to Baker Street (which was surprisingly crowded for such a commonplace little street at that time of evening,) and hailed a cab. As our cabbie shook his reins, and the trap began to make its way up the street, however, I could have sworn that I felt a slight bump, as of someone jumping on to the back of the hansom. This concerned me at first, but, seeing as there were so many people all jostling about on Baker Street, I simply dismissed it as someone accidently bumping in to the cab. In any case, the incident was completely forgotten an hour later – in fact, I believe that most of my memories of the outside world simply faded away that night – when I found myself caught up in the breathtaking, twisting, turning, lunging, soaring, flying, and diving music of Tchaikovsky's violin. Perhaps it is a trait that runs in the Holmes family, that each of us are left simply spellbound by the sound of a beautifully played violin, for I had often fallen in to the same peculiar state whenever I had heard Holmes playing back in Baker Street; and indeed, he too, judging by the expression on his face whenever he played, was completely swept away by his own music, like a helpless, struggling man in the tides.

In fact, I was in such a blissful, dreamy state by the interval, that I unfortunately did not look where I was going, and my shoulder accidently collided with a young lady in a beautiful lavender gown with Eastern, gold embroidery, who was walking along, busily discussing the performance with her friend. A leather case fell from her hand, spilling its contents of a pair of small, mother of pearl opera glasses on to the carpet of the foyer.

"Oh, excuse me!" I said, smiling apologetically at her, and stooping down to pick up the opera glasses and their case.

"That's quite alright," the young lady said, in a voice that had a touch of sunshine to it. "I was so busy talking to Emma here that I'm afraid I didn't see you."

I placed the opera glasses back inside their case, and held them out to her, continuing to insist that the accident had been entirely my fault, when I suddenly noticed the monogrammed initials that had been painted in elegant, purple lettering on the little, cream leather case – 'E.H.' Now, these initials were common enough, but my intrigued mind quickly began running over the other clues that I could see before me – A diamond engagement ring of considerable value, a dress most likely of Indian creation, the bearing and deportment of a young lady of great society, but with a girlish smile and sweet innocence in her eyes, as of a little girl when she earns her first piece of real jewellery. Inference; that this young lady was engaged to a gentleman of high social standing and of great wealth (far greater than what her own had previously been,) and who was very well travelled (The Indian dress had clearly been a gift from him.) In the golden days of the British Empire, military men were by far the most well travelled people in society...

"Excuse me," I said, as the young lady took the case from me with a smile and a word of thanks; "You wouldn't happen to be Miss Elizabeth Howard, would you?"

The young lady looked at me for a moment, then exchanged a startled look with her friend.

"Why yes, I am," she said. "I'm sorry, have we met before?"

I was by now getting quite used to the sensation of dread creeping in to my stomach; but there was something distinctly different and far more unsettling about the feeling this time, as I looked at the beaming face of Miss Elizabeth Howard – The young lady whose disappearance Holmes was supposed to be investigating. Dread did not so much as creep, but came galloping in, spreading to every nerve in my body, until I felt as though I might faint. With what must have been a deathly white face, I turned quickly, and called across the foyer for Watson.

"Yes, Miss Winchester, what is it?" he said, as he came towards Miss Howard, her friend and I. "You sound a little flustered."

"Dr. Watson," I said, as calmly as I could, turning back to Miss Howard; "This is Miss Elizabeth Howard, Captain Ethelred's fiancée. You remember Holmes told us about her?"

Shock passed only momentarily over Watson's face, before he replaced it with a rather unsteady smile, and reached out to take the young lady's hand.

"How do you do, Miss Howard?"

"How do you do? Oh, so you're friends of my dear Victor's? I'm so sorry, Victor has so many friends and acquaintances that I can hardly remember all of their names!"

Her conversation was only confirming the terrible idea that had sprung to life in my mind, and I exchanged a worried glance with Watson.

"Miss Howard?" he began, slowly. "Does your fiancé...know where you are at present?"

Miss Howard looked quite perplexed at this question.

"Yes, of course," she replied. "The tickets were a gift from him to Emma and I for her birthday...Oh, pardon me, this is my sister, Miss Emma Howard..."

But before the Howard sisters could introduce themselves any further, Watson seized my arm, and dragged me out of the theatre, running up the street in a hectic search for a cab.

"But what's going on, Watson?" I said, as I stumbled behind him. "If Elizabeth Howard hasn't vanished, why did Holmes say he'd been employed to look for her?"

"I dread to think, Miss Winchester," Watson said, and there was a worrying note of panic in his voice. "I really do dread to think..."

I opened my mouth to continue with my bemused questions, when suddenly, a strange figure caught my eye. He was a fairly small man, dressed in a dark coat and a black bowler hat, but that was all that I could see of him, for he was partially concealed behind a stone pillar, as though he was trying not to be seen. A pair of gleaming, fiery eyes looked out from under the brim of the bowler hat, and I could have sworn that those eyes were staring straight at me...

"Baker Street please, cabbie," I heard Watson say suddenly, and before I knew it, I had been bundled in to a hansom, and Watson was urging the driver to go as quickly as possible. As the cab took off, I once again felt that slight bump, as though someone had grabbed hold of the back of the carriage, and was at that very moment travelling with us back to Baker Street.

After what must have been the fastest cab journey of my entire life, we found ourselves back at the door of 221b, and, whilst Watson was paying our cabbie, I darted around to the back of the hansom, to find...nothing. There was no one clinging to the back, and no sign of the man in the bowler hat that I had spotted outside the Theatre Royal.

"Come on, Miss Winchester!" Watson called from the doorstep, and I decided to abandon the matter for now, and rushed inside with Watson, who had luckily brought his keys with him, and did not have to knock for Mrs. Hudson.

Although I still did not have a clue as to what was going on, it was obvious from Watson's urgent manner as we hurried up the stairs that Holmes was in imminent danger, and I glanced about, frantically for him as we reached the landing.

"Holmes?" Watson called, knocking briefly on his bedroom door, before going to open it. "Holmes?"

The door had been unlocked since our departure, and Watson threw it open, and entered Holmes's room, while I instinctively looked away. As I did so, however, I noticed that the sitting room door stood open a fraction, and a chink of orange firelight shone through on to the floor.

"Watson?" I said, reaching for the doctor as he came out of Holmes's room. He looked at me, questioningly, and I pointed silently towards the sitting room (Why I pointed, I do not know, but I seemed to sense that a solemn silence was called for.)

With a grim face, Watson slowly advanced to the sitting room door, and nudged it open. The door swung forth in to silence, and Watson and I crept in to the dimly lit sitting room, our footfalls barely making a sound. I was stunned. In our absence, it seemed that someone had completely rearranged the furniture – Holmes' and Watson's armchairs had been bizarrely stacked on top of each other, several household ornaments and objects had been arranged in to a strange pattern in the middle of the carpet, the curtains had been knotted together like cords of rope, and the settee seemed to have completely disappeared.

"Ah, hello Watson," said a voice at the side of the room. It was without doubt the most hideous voice I had ever heard – Oily, deranged, and enough to make a person's skin crawl. It reminded me strangely of a piece of meat festering in the sun. With a shudder, I turned to look at the owner of the voice...and a cold wave of horror washed over me. It was Holmes.

At least, it _looked _like Holmes. The being lying on the settee (which I now saw had been drawn right up against the wall on the other side of the room,) seemed so far from the Holmes that I knew, that I could almost have been persuaded that it was a demon in his shape. But there was no mistaking the pale, aquiline features, the fine, long fingered hands (which were at present toying, aimlessly with Holmes's corn cob pipe,) and the thin, sinewy form, dressed rather uncharacteristically in a dishevelled shirt and open waistcoat, and what could possibly have been Watson's trousers. It was his eyes that made him seem so unfamiliar. They held a truly bizarre expression in them – Wild and languid at the same time, and with none of that usual gleaming alertness that was so characteristic of Holmes. They did not even seem to be the same colour anymore. So unsettling was the sight, that I was actual forced to recoil in horror as those monstrous eyes fixed on me.

"Oh, and Miss Winchester! Delightful to see you."

The thing on the sofa did not talk with Holmes's voice. It was a horrible voice, one that I never wanted to hear again. From the corner of my eye, I saw Watson shoot me a quick glance, but I could not turn my head to respond to him, as every joint in my body seemed frozen with complete horror. With a painful sigh, Watson approached the sofa.

"What have you done now?" he hissed, bending down to examine Holmes. "This is more than your usual seven percent solution, isn't it? You're hyperactive, which is why you've wreaked such chaos around the apartment!"

A horrific realisation was dawning on me, and I backed away from the heart wrenching sight of Holmes lying in such a disgusting state on the settee, and found myself bumping in to the desk. Glancing over my shoulder, I suddenly noticed that that foreboding desk drawer was open slightly, with the key and Holmes's watch chain dangling from the lock. Something silvery glinted at me from within. With a pounding heart, I pulled the drawer wide open, and cringed in disgust as a large, glass syringe, evidently recently used, rolled across the sheets of scrap paper that lined the bottom. With it sat a black Moroccan case, lined with green silk, and a large supply of fresh medical needles. There were also small phials of the stuff that I assumed was at this very moment polluting Holmes's bloodstream.

"Watson?" I said, quietly, holding up one of the little glass phials. "What is this?"

Watson looked up from attempting to take a protesting Holmes's pulse, and froze, his eyes glancing, feverishly between myself and the bottle of liquid.

"Watson?" I said again, this time more forcefully. "What _is _this?"

Never had a silence seemed so screamingly loud. The only sound in the room was the sound of Holmes giggling, manically, and I wanted nothing more than to just scream at him to shut up. Watson swallowed, heavily, and finally, he spoke;

"Cocaine," he said, and I felt my strength crumbling away. "I've _tried _to get him to stop, Miss Winchester, I really have tried..!"

While I continued to look on the desk drawer with horror and disgust, Holmes, unbelievably, endeavoured to defend himself (Though I doubt he really knew what he was saying.)

"My 'dangerous habit'," he began, in a noticeably slurred voice, "as you have so often dubbed it Watson, is necessary to me! Cocaine is the only thing that helps me to escape this" – he glanced around the dimly lit room – "barren existence! Without my cases, Watson, my work, my problems...I am but an over-active mind sitting in maddening stagnation!"

"Holmes, it is far beyond that now, and you know it!" Watson erupted suddenly. "You had your pick of cases to choose from to keep your mind stimulated, but instead you turned to the cocaine! You deliberately created a fake case so as to get Miss Winchester and I to leave the house, and leave you to your substance! You are addicted, Holmes! You are completely, utterly, violently addicted!"

I suddenly felt as though the very atmosphere in the room was suffocating me, and I fled out on to the landing gasping for breath, and letting go of my tears. It took all my effort not to fall on to my knees as I slammed the door behind me.

As I stood bent over, taking in great lungfulls of air, and letting out a strangled sob inbetween each one, I heard the sitting room door once again open behind me, and a hand placed itself on my shoulder.

"I'm so sorry you had to see him like this, Miss Winchester," Watson said, softly. "I know how fond you've grown of him, and it breaks my heart to see him this way, just as it does for you."

What was in fact upsetting me most about this situation was the sheer absurdity of it all! Holmes's mind seemed to be, above all things, his most treasured possession – indeed, I myself was starting to regard it as one of the most marvellous things in creation – and the fact he would intentionally risk damaging it so was inexplicable, and severely changed my respect for him. How had he even fallen in to this disgusting practice? And yes, I had to admit, I was grudgingly beginning to care for Holmes a great deal. I was concerned about him.

"We have to do something, Watson," I said, turning to the doctor as I dried my tears. "We can't let this go on any more. We _have _to do something!"

There was a grave expression in Watson's dark eyes – the gravest I have ever seen him – and I knew that I could rely on his help as he firmly took my hand, and nodded.


	6. Chapter 5

**Note from Agatha: Big shout out to everyone who reads, and for some reason likes, my stories. My inbox has been bombarded with alerts about people favouriting all over the place. You're awesome. :D**

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><p>What followed was quite possibly one of the most horrendous nights of my life. Though it hurt my heart to do it, I agreed with Watson that Holmes would have to be locked in the sitting room for the night for his own safety (as well as to spare poor Mrs. Hudson, should she happen to come upstairs,) until the affects of the drug had worn off. After securing all the exits to the sitting room, leaving Holmes caged like a wild animal, we retreated upstairs to Watson's room, and began to talk over what was to be done about our poor friend. Watson made some small protest about my having to be involved at all, but, despite the faith that I had in his abilities as a doctor, and the terror that I felt at the prospect of taking on such a serious and monumental task, I was determined to see this matter settled for myself, and it was decided that the two of us would begin weaning Holmes off of his cocaine at once.<p>

The only person who I can imagine suffered a more brutal night than myself was Holmes. I could not sleep, and left my room (which had somehow become unbearably hot and still,) sometime in the early hours of the morning to wash my face at the bathroom sink. Whilst gazing through the darkness at my dim reflection in the bathroom mirror, the urge suddenly came upon me to creep downstairs briefly to check on Holmes's condition (Watson had theorised that it would be around this time that the dose of cocaine he had injected himself with would begin to wear off.) Although Watson had taken the key in to his room with him, I realised that I would not have to go in to the sitting room itself – and indeed, I did not want to – and that I could simply listen outside the door. Somehow, I imagined that that would be easier, as nothing could possibly be worse than having to see Holmes in the full grip of that beastly substance. I was wrong.

I don't believe I have ever felt such a strange sense of excited terror, as I slowly made my way down the stairs, placing both feet on each step at a time. I paused in the middle of the staircase, listening intently for any sound from the sitting room. I could just make out a faint shuffling noise. Gathering my courage (and my breath, for I realised at this point that I had forgotten to breathe,) I descended the rest of the staircase, and approached the sitting room door. Inside, I could hear Holmes's footsteps (which I had by now come to recognise,) slowly but intensely circling the room. The sensation as I saw the flicker of his shadow sailing under the door was like feeling the first currents of wind in an approaching storm whip past. I seemed hypnotised by the rhythm of his footsteps, and as I stood listening for what seemed like hours, I gradually began to notice that his pacing was becoming faster and more feverish. After a while, he broke away from his pattern, and went across in the direction of his bedroom door. I heard him rattling, hopelessly at the fastened lock, before marching across in the direction of the sitting room door. I leapt back as I saw the tips of his shoes appear, pressed against the miniscule gap between door and floor, and listened to his increasingly frustrated attempts to wrench the door open. Part of me wanted to call out to him, but my fear of how he would react kept me silent.

After a few more minutes of struggling in vain with the sitting room door, Holmes at last gave up, and I must admit that I breathed a sigh of relief as I heard him furiously crossing to the other side of the room. Cautiously stepping over, I pressed my ear to the door, and realised that he was now attempting to force one of the windows. A crippling feeling of sympathy then cut through me like a blade, as I heard the sound of the drawer being ripped out of the desk, savagely emptied, and hurled on to the carpet. I knew that he would not find what he was looking for. Watson had removed all of the glass phials, and emptied them in to the bathroom sink. My eyes welled with tears as I listened to Holmes's movements around the room becoming more and more frantic, as he desperately searched for a way out so that he could get to his cocaine. I heard him muttering as he dashed, senselessly about, and I wondered what hideous delusions the after effects of the drug were making him have. Finally, he slumped against the other side of the door with a defeated groan, and slowly, I heard his body slide down to the floor, until he was sitting, huddled in the doorframe.

I stood, silently for several minutes, looking at the dark sliver of Holmes that I could just see beneath the door. I couldn't leave. Retreating back upstairs to my room at this point seemed, for some reason, like abandoning him. And so, quietly – as quietly as I have ever done anything in my life – I settled down on my side of the door, sitting just as Holmes was sitting only a few inches away, and rested my head and palm against the smooth, wooden surface, completely unsure if the man on the other side was aware of my presence or not...

"Miss Winchester!"

I started awake, banging my head against the doorframe. It was morning, and I found myself sitting, cold and cramped, huddled against the sitting room door, while Watson stood looking down at me in his brown robe, completely taken aback. He had undoubtedly been surprised to come downstairs and find me sitting on the landing in nothing but my nightdress and dressing gown!

"Have you been there all night?" he said, a faint, warm smile starting to touch his face.

I didn't reply, but stood up and suitably covered myself, before asking him what time it was.

"Nine o'clock," Watson said, resuming his grave manner of last night. "The drug will have left his system now, but he will by no means look as normal." He gave me a heavy, meaningful look. "The after effects of cocaine use are quite severe. I must ask if you are _absolutely sure _you wish to continue, Miss Winchester? There's no need for you to see him at all, but you can still assist me with..." I held up a hand to stop him.

"I don't care, Watson," I said (although I rather forced myself to say it.) "You need to be helped through this as much as he does. I want to see him get better with my own eyes, and I also want to make sure that this damn cocaine doesn't hurt you aswell as him."

I could see that he still wasn't pleased, but I knew, despite his brave years spent serving in Afghanistan, that Watson had a sensitive heart, and something as devastating as the illness and suffering of his friend would be enough to break through even Watson's toughened skin, and strike him right to his core. Holmes could always rely on his Boswell, but who did the dear doctor have to rely on? My support was very much needed.

After we had both dressed and made ourselves presentable, the two of us returned to the sitting room door, Watson bearing the key. He gave me one last look, which I returned with an expression of as much strength as I could muster, and then fitted the key in the lock, and pushed the door open. The sitting room was a bizarre, grey haze of tobacco smoke, with weak sunlight pouring in through the half-drawn blinds, giving the room a strange, unearthly, twilight atmosphere. It was just as much a wreck as before, except Holmes seemed to have knocked over a few more things in his frantic pacing of last night, and I felt a rush of horror as I spotted a dark red stain in the middle of the carpet, then sighed with relief as I spotted the vacant wine bottle lying near it. It was most unlike Holmes to drink, but after discovering his cocaine habit of all things, I had decided that it was best not to assume that I knew his limits. Holmes himself lay curled up on the newly positioned sofa. It was not a pleasant sight.

He looked weak, defeated, and utterly broken (four words that I had never in my life imagined I would ever use in connection with Sherlock Holmes.) He did not seem to have slept at all, and his eyes were hideously bloodshot, with grey shadows beneath them. He shivered where he lay, seemingly frightened of the very room around him, and his face was contorted with agony. I was repulsed, and I vowed then and there that I would not rest until I had broken the drug's grip on him! _'The saddest sight of all is the ruin of a noble mind...' _[1]

"Watson," Holmes said, wearily, closing his clouded eyes at the sight of his friend; "Please go away, I do not have the energy nor the patience to respond to another one of your arguments!"

"Then you will just listen," Watson said, firmly. The firmness was enough to make Holmes open one, curious eye, and I saw him fleetingly glance in my direction.

"Watson, take Miss Winchester out of here," he groaned, waving a hand. "Whatever words of chastisement you have to make to me today, I am sure Miss Winchester does not have to hear them..."

"Miss Winchester is here at her own request, Holmes," Watson said, continuing in his stern, authoritive tone. "And I have no words for you today."

Holmes opened his other eye, and looked at Watson in a rather perplexed manner.

"You mean to say that you have not planned a lecture for me?" he said, somewhat disbelievingly. "No medical advice, no pleas for me to consider my sanity?"

"No," Watson replied. "I have merely come to inform you of what is going to be done."

Holmes mulled over this declaration for a moment, then gave a great, long-suffering sigh, and shifted on to his back, gazing at the ceiling.

"I see," he said, with the usual sardonic tone returning to his voice. "Your patient is refusing to cooperate, so you are going to restrain him in a strait-jacket, and apply what you believe is best for him by force, is that so? I knew that medical men could become somewhat egotistical Watson, but I must admit, I never envisioned this problem with you."

I saw Watson bristle slightly at Holmes's scalding words, but the good doctor held his ground, and looked the other man directly in his cold, hard, and somewhat angry, grey eyes.

"My _friend _is refusing to admit that he has a serious medical addiction to a harmful substance," he said, mimicking Holmes's matter-of-fact tone. "Indeed, I should not be his friend if I did not intervene. Holmes, surely you can see that, were you in your right state of mind, you would not wish to continue like this? You pride yourself on being a creature of logic, with a completely unblinkered and uncoloured view of the world. _This _– " he gestured to Holmes's dishevelled, prostrate form – "is surely hindering your ability to see the truth above all else?"

The sense in Watson's statement was clearly disturbing Holmes, for I could see him almost biting on his tongue, as he fixed the ceiling with a fierce glare, determined, it seemed, to block out Watson's words. We had beaten him in to a corner, I could see, and now was the time to act. I stepped forward, and calmly held out my hand. I was surprised at how steady it looked, for my insides were writhing very unpleasantly, and my heart was hammering with such force that I was sure Holmes would hear it.

"Give it to me."

Holmes shot me a look deliberately designed to make me feel uneasy.

"What?" he said, irritably. "There was none of my solution left in my desk drawer, you confiscated them all..."

"Not that!" I said, sharply. "The syringe. It should be on the floor somewhere from where you emptied the drawer last night, but it's missing. You're hiding it. Give it to me."

There was a long, sinister pause, in which Holmes gave me his hardest glare, his dark, greyish eyes looking something like thunderclouds. But I refused to draw back my hand, and all the while I kept my eyes fixed, steadily on his face (although I was a little too afraid to look directly in to his eyes.) Finally seeing that I was not going to back down, Holmes lifted himself up off of the settee, reached beneath the cushions, and pulled out the black Moroccan case. I seized it, tipped the heavy, glass syringe out on to the carpet, and smashed it, gleefully beneath my heel. Holmes passed an uncertain hand over his brow.

A thorough search followed. Most of the drug paraphernalia we found scattered across the room from where Holmes had upturned the desk drawer, but Watson still discovered phials of cocaine and little spare syringes in Holmes's room. It was clear that Watson had attempted to hunt down these tools of Holmes's vice before, or else Holmes would not have felt the need to hide them in such obscure places as the coal scuttle and under his bed and so on. At last, we had snapped every needle, and broken every syringe, and poured all of the vile substance away.

"There," I said, shaking the last few drops out of a tiny bottle and in to the bathroom sink. "That's the last of it."

Watson smiled and nodded to me, then turned to Holmes, who was standing just outside the doorway, pretending not to care about the disposal of his beloved cocaine.

"I assume I am to follow your instructions from now on, Watson?" he said, coldly.

"Indeed you are, Holmes," Watson replied, with just as much coldness.

"Very well. What am I to do exactly?"

"Firstly," Watson began, holding Holmes's sarcastic gaze, and delivering his words with as much force as a hammer; "you are not to accept any cases until you are completely rehabilitated of your dependency on cocaine."

"That should be simple enough, Watson, for, as I have told you many times, I have no dependency on..."

"_Secondly_," Watson continued, relentlessly; "you are only to leave the house rarely, and not without either myself or Miss Winchester accompanying you. Miss Winchester and I have decided that no one is to know of this event except Mycroft. I shall certainly not be mentioning it in my memoirs of you..."

"And will my warder permit me to read my newspapers?" Holmes sneered. "Or am I to have no contact with the outside world?"

"Miss Winchester will bring you your copies of the _'Times'_, the _'Telegraph'_, the _'Standard'_, the _'Gazette'_, the _'Pall Mall' _and the _'Evening Post' _every week," Watson said, reassuringly. "Thirdly, you are to behave yourself. You will not protest by breaking things, or adding alkaloid to my food, or kicking Gladstone, or acting childishly in any way. This is all in your best interests, Holmes. If you will simply cooperate, it will be far easier for us all."

It was an emotional plea on Watson's part, but it clearly fell on deaf ears, as Holmes's pale, haggard face held only an expression of pure contempt.

"Have you any orders for me at the present, _Doctor_?" he said with a snarl. "Or am I free to explore my cage at will?"

I had a terrible feeling that Watson's patience was wearing thin, and that he was going to lash out at Holmes at any moment. I placed a touch on the back of his arm, reminding him to be careful, and the doctor's demeanour instantly returned to being calm and controlled.

"Go to your room, and make yourself look slightly more respectable," he said, indicating Holmes's tramp-like appearance. "I'll ask Mrs. Hudson to prepare some breakfast."

Holmes sniffed, and made his way downstairs, wearing an expression that proudly declared he thought himself above it all. Progress was certainly not going to be made easily.

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><p>[1] Little <em>'Dying Detective'<em> reference for you there.


	7. Chapter 6

**Day One:**

"You say he's ill, Miss Winchester?" Mrs. Hudson asked with concern, as she handed me Holmes's breakfast on a tray (Watson had sent me downstairs to collect it, rather than have the poor lady come upstairs to find her rooms in horrific disarray, and Holmes looking as though he had spent the night in his grave.)

"Very ill I'm afraid, Mrs. Hudson," I said, continuing with the story that Watson and I had concocted the night before. "Dr. Watson doesn't think he'll be able to leave the house for weeks. It's incredibly contagious, you see."

"Good heavens!" Mrs. Hudson looked distraught. "Will you and Dr. Watson be quite alright living upstairs with him?"

"Watson's set up some precautions," I said, as I began to edge my way back up the staircase (Lying to Mrs. Hudson, no matter how good the intentions behind it may have been, still felt like committing an act of blasphemy. I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.) "He thinks we should be safe from infection; and besides, Holmes _does _need to be cared for...Although he won't admit it," I added under my breath. "But we can't have any visitors, Mrs. Hudson. Dr. Watson says it's far too dangerous, for them and for Holmes. He says that _no one _is to be let in to the house, _especially _not upstairs, and you're only to come upstairs yourself when he tells you it's safe. If Inspector Lestrade calls round, tell him that Mr. Holmes is completely incapable of taking on any cases at the moment."

"Naturally, miss, but – "

"And make sure that all the doors and windows are safely locked at night," I added over my shoulder, by this time too ashamed to even look in to Mrs. Hudson's innocently unaware face; "We can't let him...Dr. Watson says it will reduce the chance of any spores getting out."

"Of course I will, miss, but I was going to ask about packages."

This puzzled me, and I turned to look down the staircase at her.

"Packages, Mrs. Hudson?"

"Yes, Miss Winchester. My cousin got one from India once, you see, carrying the Typhoid Fever on it! I've always been very careful of packages since then, particularly strange ones, and I simply didn't know what to make of these. Oh, I do hope I haven't caused Mr. Holmes's illness by bringing them in to the house..."

"Mrs. Hudson," I said, suspiciously stepping back down to the bottom of the stairs with the tray; "What _are _you talking about?"

Mrs. Hudson disappeared briefly in to her parlour, and came out a minute later bearing three pretty parcels, wrapped in some rather beautiful ebony and crimson striped paper. Each one had been heavily perfumed, and was decorated with a bow of deep red velvet, fastened in place with a little, jewelled pin.

"You see what I mean, miss?" Mrs. Hudson said, as I stared at the packages in complete bewilderment, and not a little astonishment. "The first one arrived a few weeks ago, just after you had come back from the hospital after that terrible incident at the Albert Hall. And this one – " she indicated one of the packages – "came early this morning."

"Who are they addressed to?" I asked, still looking at the parcels in surprise. Mrs. Hudson frowned, deeply.

"Well, that's just it, miss," she said, sounding at her wits' end. "Each package came with a card stating that it was a gift for 'Miss Holmes.' I went to every door on the street, I even placed an advertisement in the _'Evening Post'_, but I can't seem to find who they belong to. My last thought was that they might be for you, although I know you and Mr. Holmes are only distantly related."

I raised my eyebrows, startled, as I looked at the beautifully wrapped gifts. For me? Who would send a parcel for me here? I had no friends in London, and the only family I had were my stepmother, Rowena (now in prison,) Holmes and Mycroft, and none of them had ever called me by the name of Holmes. Despite how innocent they seemed, I could feel that familiar warning feeling building within me as I looked at the packages, and I suspected _something._

"If you could leave them on the stairs, Mrs. Hudson," I said, wanting to avoid Holmes's breakfast getting cold; "I'll have a look at them later."

"Of course, miss. Do give my regards to Mr. Holmes. I hope he's soon well."

I felt my cheeks burning, guiltily, as I made my way back up the stairs, bearing the tray. In the middle of my ascent, I heard Mrs. Hudson mutter behind me, "Although, what with all the narcotics Mr. Holmes takes, I'm frankly not surprised he's ill!" Shocked, I spun round to look back down the stairs, but the lady had already vanished in to her parlour.

On the landing, I found Watson staring, intently at Holmes's bedroom door, tapping his foot, impatiently, while the detective banged and rattled about inside.

"What on earth is he doing?" I said over the deafening noise.

"Trying to force open his window, I believe," Watson said, dangling the key before my face. "Even if he manages to break the glass, it's square-paned. He'll have to destroy the entire casement before he's able to get out." I flinched. I was beginning to wonder whether it was not a little cruel to imprison Holmes like this...

After a few more minutes of hectic banging, crashing, and shattering noises, the commotion in Holmes room finally ceased, and was followed by a long moment of silence. Then, the door calmly swung open, and there stood Sherlock Holmes, immaculately dressed and with his dark hair combed back, as usual. It was as though the previous night had never even happened.

"Ah, Miss Winchester, you have my breakfast, I see," Holmes said, neatly closing the door behind him. "Very well, bring it in here."

I bit my tongue, and forced myself to compliantly follow him in to the sitting room, like a maid, and placed the tray down on the table. Watson had been doing his best to clean up, and had almost restored the room to its usual state (The remaining mess was about what we usually suffered on a Sunday, when Holmes was bored. Holmes had a peculiar dislike for Sundays.)

"I believe Mrs. Hudson to be the only person in the world capable of cooking scrambled eggs properly," Holmes remarked, judging the eggs on his plate with his fork. "All throughout life, I don't believe I have ever come across a lady with such talent regarding the best mode of use for a whisk." He raised his fork to his mouth, then paused suddenly as his eyes fell on me, staring at him in bewilderment, and not a little alarm.

"You haven't put something in it, have you?" he said, his eyes narrowing.

"Why on earth would I do that?" I said, outraged (Although even as I said it, about a hundred different reasons came to my mind.)

"Not to worry, Miss Winchester," Watson said, placing a calming hand on my shoulder. "Paranoia is a common symptom of narcotics withdrawal."

Holmes sat up, indignantly, and took a mouthful of scrambled egg, almost in defiance.

"I am most certainly not experiencing withdrawal symptoms, Watson!" he said, savagely applying marmalade to his toast. "Now, if you will excuse me, I would prefer to have my breakfast alone. And, child," he added, gesturing to me (I had become used to him calling me this whenever he was in a black mood;) "Please remember to take that miserable dog out of here at least once a day! He is a nuisance!" Gladstone (who was far too lazy to be anything near a nuisance,) looked up from his basket, and gave a rather hurt whimper.

Watson and I both retreated from the sitting room and Holmes's veracious temper (I carried Gladstone with me, just in case Holmes decided to go back on his promise to Watson never again to kick his dog,) and Watson collected his coat and hat, and went to visit Mycroft in Pall Mall to inform him of the situation. I, meanwhile, went back downstairs to discover the mysterious parcels that Mrs. Hudson had left out for me, and quietly took both them and Gladstone up to my room. While the bulldog settled himself amongst the blankets on my bed, I sat myself down in a small alcove between two stacks of Holmes's much loved case souvenirs (it seemed somehow necessary to conceal myself for the opening of a mysterious package containing only the Almighty knew what,) and carefully took up one of the packages. As I cautiously began to examine it, I adopted some of Holmes's methods of observation and deduction, trying to determine who the mysterious sender might be.

The package had been meticulously well wrapped, and the paper was of no ordinary sort, but peculiarly strong and stiff, and exquisitely painted in rich colours. The pin that held the beautiful red velvet bow in place bore a pure, glittering ruby, and the perfume that I could smell on the package was a distinctive, oriental blend, quite possibly orchid, and some sort of fruit. There was no doubt that the person who had sent this was extremely wealthy, travelled, and of especially neat and tidy habits. And yet there was something so unnecessary about the presentation of the package – something so _insincere _about the way in which it had been finely decorated and perfumed, all for the benefit of a complete stranger, whose real name the sender did not even know – that made me feel cold and uncertain. I looked for other signs, but there were none – Not even the finger marks of the postman. I shook the parcel carefully, but gained no clue as to its contents, and its shape revealed only a cardboard box. Finally, after a thorough examination that deemed the package to be safe, I unpinned the velvet bow, and pulled off the paper.

It was (as I had suspected,) a medium-sized, white cardboard box. Lifting the lid an inch, I peered in, but saw nothing but layers of fine, red tissue paper. With a frown, I took the lid off the box, and unfolded the tissue paper to reveal yet another, smaller box. This one, however, was not cardboard, but looked more like a jewellery box, with a brass buckle on the front, and was covered on the outside with a cracked, scarlet leather. Stamped on the lid, I could just make out the peeling remnants of a pair of initials. I stopped and stared, utterly stunned. The initials on the lid of the jewellery box were _Rowena's_, 'R.W.' It suddenly struck me that this jewellery box seemed to be a small imitation of one of the scarlet suitcases I had arrived in Baker Street with, and I must say that this realisation unsettled me to say the least. Who on earth would send me such a bizarre gift, and why?

Just then, I noticed a small, handwritten card in amongst the tissue paper, and picked it up. It read (rather disturbingly;) _'Remember Rebecca, my dear sweet girl.' _I thought for a moment, and realised that there was only one person the message could have been referring to...Rebecca Moore, the young woman who had been shot with an air gun by the mysterious assassin, Smith, in the case that Watson had dubbed _'The Purple Cloak' _(and which I myself have entitled _'A Study in Scarlet Suitcases.'_) With a sickening sense of horror building in my chest, I gingerly placed my fingers around the jewellery box, and slowly began to lift the lid. Something glittered at me, and I held back a scream of horror as I realised what it was, and hurled the jewellery box across the room. I did not see the object inside clearly, but I did not need to. I knew what it was.

It was Rebecca Moore's engagement ring. The ring that she had sold on the day of her death. Someone was trying to frighten me.


	8. Chapter 7

**Day Three:**

"I think you will find that that is an illegal move, Miss Winchester."

I flinched, irritably at the sound of Holmes's voice, but did not look up from the black and white squares of the chess board.

"And I think _you _will find, Holmes, that that's the fourth time you've said that to me during this game, and I haven't once made an illegal move!"

A peculiar tingling feeling struck the top of my head, and I knew that Holmes was glaring at me. Although I longed to look up and show him just how much I had been practicing what I called his 'tigers' stare', I realised that there was little chance he would even see it through the dense, grey fog that was presently clouding the sitting room. Since being deprived of his cocaine, Holmes's smoking habit had grown beyond ridiculous, and he was consuming, I would estimate, about three times his usual daily amount of tobacco. He had also grown noticeably paler, and his behaviour was becoming even more erratic and unusual (And that which was unusual for Sherlock Holmes was positively frightening to the rest of the world!)

"You must have done!" Holmes insisted, huffily. "I have already played four of my winning moves, and yet you somehow have the advantage! There is no other explanation!"

"Yes there is," I sighed. "You're not very good at chess."

I glanced up to see Holmes giving me an icy stare that pierced through the thick, swirling tobacco smoke, as he banged down his Bishop, making the other pieces on the board rattle. With a strong sense of foreboding, I gently moved my Rook.

"Check mate," I said, and waited for the explosion...

Holmes threw back his chair with such force that it catapulted across the room, and grabbed a fistful of his black pawns; hurling them back in to the box like shamed Roman soldiers, hurled in to the ocean and condemned to drown.

"Well, that was the most shameless display of cheating I have ever seen in my life!" he said, continuing to punish his pieces by forcefully throwing them back in to the box. "The fact that you continually changed the colour of the pieces _in front of me _was quite an insult!"

I said nothing. Watson had informed me that Holmes would experience some hallucinations as his system continued to adapt to its sudden, cocaine-free state. For the moment, they seemed relatively mild, but Watson had warned me that they would grow steadily worse. Every day, however, was a step closer to all of Holmes's pangs and hallucinations and fitful, uncomfortable nights ceasing completely, and he would at last be free of that vile substance's control over him.

While Holmes stormed back in to his room with the chess set, I quickly darted over to the window (the key to which was around my wrist,) unlocked it, and threw up the sash, letting out the toxic smoke from Holmes's pipe, and gulping in the fresh air. While I leaned out, enjoying the subtle breeze, and gazing out over the crooked chimney tops of London, a figure at the corner of the street down below caught my eye. Though I kept my face turned to the shadowy blue horizon ahead, I peered, intently at the figure through my peripheral vision, and found that it was the same, darkly dressed man in the bowler hat that I had spotted outside the Theatre Royal. He stood at the corner of Baker Street, some one hundred yards from our front door, lounging against a lamp post, and smoking a scrawny, black cigarette, while he stared, coolly at someone approaching. It was Watson.

Ten seconds later, I heard the doctor's requesting knock for entry at the front door, and hurried downstairs to answer it (Mrs. Hudson had gone to the market.)

"Afternoon, Miss Winchester," Watson said, entering with his doctor's bag. "Well, it took a substantial amount of paperwork, but I managed to get..."

Completely oblivious of Watson's words, I leaned out of the doorway, and looked up the street to where the mysterious stranger had been standing; but he had already vanished...

"Miss Winchester?"

I started, and looked round, realising that Watson was standing just behind me, following my gaze.

"What are you looking at?" he asked, curiously.

"Just checking to see if we'd had anymore post," I said, stepping back inside, and closing the front door. Upon opening one of the mysterious packages two days ago, and discovering the engagement ring of the late Rebecca Moore, I had thrust the remaining two packages unopened under my bed, and had hidden the ring and the strange jewellery box in one of my drawers, too frightened and too bewildered to mention anything to either Watson or Holmes (Though Holmes was not exactly an option at present.) I had not looked at them since, and although the idea of opening the remaining two packages had briefly crossed my mind, I could not yet even bring myself to touch them. With a slight shudder, I turned back to Watson;

"What were you saying?"

Watson opened up his leather doctor's case, and held it out for me to see the contents. It was absolutely crammed full of tin pill boxes and glass bottles of every shape and size.

"I got every non-addictive sedative and sleeping draft that I could lay my hands on," he said, looking on the bag rather sadly. "Some of them are quite powerful, but his system will be quite resilient because of the cocaine use. I needed to make sure I found something that would work."

My heart sank in to my boots, and I fought back the tears that I could feel trying to creep in and blur my vision as I looked at the doctor.

"Do we have to, Watson?" I said, aware that my voice was coming out as a feeble croak. "He wouldn't try to hurt us, surely? Not even if..."

"They are merely a precaution, Miss Winchester," Watson said, sweetly touching my face, and smiling through his own tears. "His condition will grow worse before it grows better. And they are more to ensure that Holmes does no harm to _himself, _rather than to us. People in his situation have been known to act..."

There was a loud thump suddenly from upstairs, and a series of screams could be heard out on the street. I looked at Watson in alarm, then complete horror, as I suddenly remembered that I had left the sitting room window wide open.

"_Holmes!_" I screamed, and Watson and I sprinted up the stairs, and charged in to the sitting room just in time to see Holmes's coat tails disappear through the window.

"Oh, dear God!" Watson fairly pushed me out of the way in his desperation to get to the window. "Holmes!"

He pushed the sash open wider, and the two of us squeezed our frames through the window side by side, as we leaned out to see Holmes standing on the perilously small, stone ledge that ran along the side of the house.

"Holmes!" I called, shaking with both terror and rage. "What the _hell _are you doing?"

"Miss Winchester, what have I told you about using such profanities?" Holmes said, calmly, peering down at the horrified crowd that was beginning to gather on the street below.

"Holmes, this is insane!" Watson fumed, sounding angrier than I had ever heard him. "_Please_, come back inside, before you get yourself killed!"

"I am of the opinion that I am already dead, my dear Watson," Holmes said, serenely, stepping like a tightrope walker along the stone ledge. "My lungs breathe, and my flesh has warmth, and my heart still beats in my breast, but my mind seems more still and more barren of life than the many cadavers which I frequently see on the polished slab of a hospital morgue." A smile – a hideous, awful smile, which radiated so much anger and despair, that it seemed a twisted caricature of a smile – flitted across his face. "And why? Because the only thing that stirred my mind in times of idleness has been taken from me; by _you, _of all people. Really, my dear fellow, in all the years that I have spent with you, I never once thought you capable of the murder of a friend..."

"Holmes, you are _ill!_" Watson said, desperately, reaching out to his friend. "Don't you understand? It's that substance that has made you feel this way! You need to allow yourself time to heal, time to recover..!"

Holmes gave a cruel, bitter laugh.

"And what then, my dear Watson?" he said, scornfully. "You hope that I will find satisfaction in cases of ladies with mislaid hats, and gentlemen with mislaid wives, mislaid young, handsome stablehands, and, it seems, mislaid brains? I read those letters and telegrams which you presented me with a few days ago. They were all of the same worthless stock! Criminal man has lost all enterprise and originality. Oh, you may well mention occasions such as Strange Hall, as I see you are about to, but what good was I there? What is the use of a mind that can solve the dry and mediocre in a heartbeat, but cannot solve the brilliant and fantastic before half of the household has been slaughtered? Cocaine was my only sanctuary..."

While Holmes was talking, it suddenly came to my attention that he was edging, ever so slowly, towards one of the other windows – the one to the left of the window he had climbed through – which was still shut and locked. I fingered the key around my wrist, and glanced, meaningfully at Watson, who noticed the direction in which my eyes were looking, and gave a brief, discreet nod. I withdrew from the open window, while Watson continued to distract Holmes;

"So what are you planning to do, my friend? Jump?"

"Jump, yes, but not with the intention that you seem to believe I have. My plan is to wait for the next four-wheeler to come down Baker Street, and alight on to the roof, though judging from the distance at which I have to fall, I may possibly break through it."

"Holmes," Watson said, severely; "Surely, even in your current state of mind, you can see that that is a ridiculous plan?"

"Ridiculous, perhaps," Holmes agreed (I could by this time see his form beginning to edge in front of the far window, as I myself crept up to it.) "But it is the only plan I have been able to form at present."

"And just where are you hoping this crudely hijacked four-wheeler will carry you?" Watson asked, with a surreptitious glance towards me (I was by now just a single step away from the window, but had to move painfully slowly, for fear that Holmes's keen eyes would suddenly notice me, and realise my intention.) "Do you believe that you can find your sanctuary somewhere away from myself and Miss Winchester?"

"With all due respect, Watson, yes," said Holmes (ruthlessly blunt, as always.) "Indeed, I believe that I shall go beyond London. I have grown weary of it. It has run out of things with which to interest me."

"I believe you would survive all of a day separated from your beloved London, Holmes," Watson said, smiling, gently at his friend. "Your real fear, of course, is that Miss Winchester and I would come looking for you, in the rotten alleyways, and the dark, Soho dens. Indeed, we would look for you anywhere, Holmes. That is the marvellous affect that you can have on people, when you are not in the clutches of your cocaine..."

Holmes stood still on the ledge, now squarely in front of the far window, which I stood poised on the other side of, waiting for the opportune moment.

"Your sentimentality would be most touching, I am sure Watson, were it not directed at me," Holmes said, as I quietly turned the key in the lock of the window behind him. "But now, if you will excuse me, I think I can see my cab coming..."

There were mutters and gasps from the small crowd that had gathered below, while the sound of an approaching four-wheeler rattled closer and closer.

"Holmes, please see sense!" Watson pleaded, desperately trying to give me more time, as I tried to carefully get the sash up without alerting Holmes. "Look at where you are now – On the edge of a building, threatening to jump! And all because of that terrible drug! If you would just trust Miss Winchester and I to help you..."

"Goodbye, Watson," Holmes said, with an air of finality.

"Holmes, _don't!_"

There were yells and screams from below, as Holmes leaned forward like a diver about to leap from the bank of a river, in to the water. In a flash, I reached through the open window, and grabbed at his coat tails, heaving him back. His head collided with the window frame, there was a tearing noise, and the screams of the crowd grew louder as Holmes fell from my grasp; but I thrust my upper body out of the window, and clamped my arms around his chest. Throwing aside modesty, Watson wrapped his arms around my waist, and pulled with all his strength, yanking the pair of us back through the window (I with my burette wildly out of place, and Holmes with his coat torn,) so that we toppled, safely on to the carpet. As the room whirled around me, I heard Watson hastily slamming the windows shut.

"_You devil child!_" Holmes suddenly shrieked, lunging across the floor at me. Watson quickly dived across the room, and landed on his screaming friend, pinning him down.

"Miss Winchester, my bag, quickly!" Watson said, urgently, while he wrestled with Holmes.

I had scarcely heard Watson's words, but found myself already riffling through his doctor's bag, following his instructions as I filled a syringe.

"That's enough, Holmes!" Watson said, yanking up Holmes's sleeve, and forcing the syringe in to his arm. "_That's enough!_"

The affect of the sedative was almost instantaneous. Within seconds, Holmes's speech was fading, and his eyelids began to flutter over his eyes. In those last few seconds before his form finally fell limp, I thought that he was trying to pronounce a word. It was almost impossible to decipher, as his lips moved mostly silently, and the only sounds that he made were gasps; but it seemed to me almost as if he was trying to say 'danger.'


	9. Chapter 8

**Note from Agatha: A packed full, CHAPTER XTREME! ;)**

* * *

><p><strong>Day Five:<strong>

As I sat on my bed on the morning of the 20th April, staring, indecisively at the beautiful but sinister parcel that lay in my lap, there suddenly came a loud, familiar slam from downstairs, followed by the equally familiar sound of furious hammering and shouting. With a sigh, I stowed the mysterious parcel back under my bed, and went downstairs to find Watson beating his fists against Holmes's stubbornly locked bedroom door, while the man inside steadfastly ignored his friend's complaints. Soap suds were flying across the hallway, and I was surprised and, needless to say, rather bewildered to see that Watson was clutching a large, lathered sponge in his hand!

"Holmes!" Watson called through the door. "This has gone far enough! It is unsightly, it is unhygienic, and what's more, it is an extremely childish thing of you to do!"

"What's he done now?" I groaned, leaning across the banister.

Watson turned, his face drawn and exhausted, and nodded a good morning to me.

"He is _still _refusing to wash!" he said, despairingly, pointing to Holmes's bedroom door with the large, dripping sponge. "Honestly, Miss Winchester, it's becoming quite unbearable now! I tried to get him when he was reading on the settee, but he was up and out of the room faster than a cat!" I suppressed a chuckle at the rather amusing image of Watson trying to attack a bedraggled Holmes with a sponge!

Holmes – in a move that was completely at odds with his usual, cat-like cleanliness (and only added to my fears for his increasingly unstable state of mind) – had abandoned the bathtub four days ago, along with his comb, razor, shaving pot, lime cream, clothes brush, and all the other various items he used to preen himself with everyday, and the affects were beginning to grow prominent. Worse still, he was refusing to let Watson and I clean his room (all the upstairs chores having been left to us since Mrs. Hudson could not be allowed to see Holmes,) and the stench of tobacco and chemicals wafting from his door was hideously overpowering.

"If my habits are beginning to offend you, Watson, then by all means, leave me in peace," Holmes's voice sneered from behind his bedroom door. "And take Miss Winchester with you."

"Holmes, we are not going to abandon you to the clutches of that vile substance!" Watson replied, sternly. "So if your new-found uncleanliness is an attempt to drive Miss Winchester and I away, then I am sorry to inform you that you have failed!"

There was a clatter, followed by the sounds of a spillage, and I suspected that Holmes had just upended his coffee tray in protest and annoyance at Watson's words. I shuddered to think what state his room must have been in by now!

"I can't see that he's making _any_ progress, Miss Winchester!" Watson sighed, heavily, as we went in to the sitting room together, and sat down. "After all, addiction is a mental condition, as well as a physical one. If he's going to overcome it, then he needs to be willing, but it seems that he either just doesn't understand what cocaine will do to him, or that he simply won't admit it! Even if we do succeed in rehabilitating him, I fear that his habit will always just be slumbering below the surface..."

"Let him complain, Watson," I said, fetching the coffee pot from the breakfast table, and pouring a cup for the doctor; "Let him throw all the childish tantrums he can throw! Everyone only has so much fight in them, even Holmes. He'll come to his senses soon, you'll see."

'_And if he doesn't,' _I thought, _'I'll just beat him over the head until he does!'_

Watson took the coffee cup from me with a grateful smile, and I was just helping myself to a buttered muffin, when there suddenly came a loud, impatient knock at the front door. Watson and I looked at each other in alarm.

"Who on earth is that?" Watson said, as I hurried over to the window, and peered under the blind. My boots filled with lead, and my stomach lurched in horror, as I saw just who it was that was standing on our doorstep.

"Oh, hell on earth!" I cried.

"Who is it?" Watson asked, frantically, forgetting to scold me for my expletive.

"It's Lestrade!"

Holmes's bedroom door crashed open, and he sprinted in to the room in a wave of dense tobacco smoke. He looked appalling. His chin was dirty and unshaven, his hair falling like a sodden rag in to his eyes, and it looked as though he had taken to extinguishing his cigarettes against his old purple dressing gown. As for his smell, I was quick to take a few steps back as he hastily approached and threw up the blind, for I felt that I would never be able to remove the stench from my person if I stood too close to him. His very presence in the room made me feel a little soiled.

"Lestrade!" Holmes gasped, joyfully, invoking the Inspector's name in such a different manner, that I barely recognised it. "Oh, by heaven, I don't believe I have ever been more pleased to see anyone in my life!"

It took my mind a moment to accept that these words had indeed come from Holmes's own mouth (he himself always claimed afterwards that he had no memory of ever speaking them,) and I instantly came to the conclusion that Holmes had gone quite mad, and looked, desperately to Watson for help. He, however, was gaping at Holmes in complete astonishment.

"Answer the door at once!" Holmes said, dashing from the window, and making for the sitting room door. "Dear God, and I was just beginning to lose hope!.."

"Holmes, are you _mad?_" Watson cried, seizing his friend before he could get to the stairs. "If Lestrade sees you like this, it will be the end of your career! Scotland Yard will never trust your judgement again!"

Downstairs, Lestrade pounded, angrily on the front door, and it was evident that the thin, weasely, rat-faced Inspector was not going to leave without receiving a response.

"Miss Winchester," Watson said, anxiously, still struggling with Holmes; "Go and see if you can put him off. We can't have him in the house, not with Holmes like this!"

"What on earth are you talking about, Watson?" Holmes demanded, irritably, still trying to escape his friend in order to answer the front door. "I am perfectly well! I have lost a few nights sleep, but that was my aspidistra's fault, not mine!"

"Your aspidistra?" Watson inquired with a look of dread.

"It insisted on having a conversation with me. I felt it rude to decline."

Watson gave a long, despairing look in to his friend's eyes, then turned to face me;

"_Get rid of Lestrade!"_

I bolted down the stairs, completely clueless as to what I should do to deflect the clearly angry Inspector, and found Mrs. Hudson hovering, anxiously at the front door, listening to Lestrade's furious demands to be let in.

"I wasn't sure what to do, miss," she said as I came down the stairs. "You said Dr. Watson insisted on not letting anyone in..."

"It's alright, Mrs. Hudson, I'll talk to them," I said, placing a reluctant hand on the door handle.

"Yes, I think you better had," Mrs. Hudson muttered, shuffling back in to her parlour. "My word, they _do _sound upset about something..."

With a deep breath, I forced myself to open the door, and encountered the enraged Inspector Lestrade, standing with his hands on his hips, and his dark eyes sparking with fury.

"Good morning, Inspector," I said, summoning a polite smile.

"Good morning, Miss Winchester," said Lestrade, his expression still stern. "May I have a word with Mr. Holmes, please?"

As I was formulating some sort of excuse in my mind, however, there was a loud thump from upstairs, and I suddenly heard Holmes's voice calling, _"Up here, Lestrade! Come quickly!.." _

"I'm afraid Holmes isn't accepting any cases at the moment, Inspector," I said, loudly, while Lestrade frowned, and peered over my shoulder in the direction of the noise. "I can give him a message, if you..."

"It isn't about a case, Miss Winchester," Lestrade said, his eyes now distinctly suspicious. I tried to appear innocent.

"Oh?" I said, curiously. "What..?"

"_Upstairs, Lestrade! I am being held prisoner by Dr. Watson and that deranged young girl!.."_

"_What is it about, exactly?"_ I fairly hollered in to Lestrade's face. The sounds of a struggle could now be heard from the sitting room above, and Lestrade was beginning to look alarmed.

"What on earth is going on, Miss Winchester?" he said, stepping closer to the door.

"Nothing!" I said, hastily, blocking his path. "It's just...Holmes...performing an experiment..."

Lestrade did not look entirely convinced, but he nevertheless made no attempt to force his way in to the house to see what was going on.

"Yes, we've been hearing quite a bit about Mr. Holmes's antics over at Scotland Yard!" he said, sternly, consulting a notebook that he produced from his coat pocket. "There have been complaints up and down Baker Street for weeks! I've heard about smoking censers being hurled out of windows, constant arguments, strange smells, and...What's all this about Mr. Holmes trying to _jump out of a window?"_

There was a rumble of footsteps from upstairs, and a cry of "Holmes, _put that down!", _followed by a loud smash. Lestrade made a horrified face.

"I'm so sorry, Lestrade!" I said, quickly, making to close the door. "It won't happen again! I'll see that Holmes behaves a little more appropriately!"

"If you would, Miss Winchester?" Lestrade said, forcefully, wedging his foot in the door before I could shut him out, and glaring at me through the gap. "I have more important duties to attend to than checking up on Mr. Sherlock Holmes! And it is distracting the men at the Yard..."

"I will, Inspector, I will," I said, resisting the panicked urge to break Lestrade's foot in order to slam the door closed. With a withering look, Lestrade cast a final, suspicious glance up the stairs, before removing himself from the threshold, and tipping his hat to me.

As I went to shut the door, however, I suddenly spotted a short, familiar figure, with bright orange hair, and hands thrust in to his grubby pockets, loitering about on the other side of the street, and studying the garbs (and, most likely, the purses,) of the many people who passed him. An idea that I had been deliberating came to the front of my mind, and, opening the door and peering out to make sure that Lestrade was a safe distance away, I put my fingers in my mouth, and whistled for the boy to come over. He looked a little startled to see the noise coming from a lady, but, after recognising who I was, he adjusted his cap, and loafed across the street to meet me.

"Anyfing I can 'elp you wiv then, Miss 'arriett?" he asked, hanging off of the railings beside the front steps (There was no great call for mature, lofty manners. The boy was only a couple of years younger than myself.)

"Yes there is actually, Wiggins," I said, ignoring the horrified looks of passers-by, who obviously thought it extraordinary that I should be talking to such a filthy, low-down rat as Wiggins. "Have you seen anybody leaving packages on our doorstep? Pretty ones, with a velvet bow?"

Wiggins scratched his hair, and thought for a moment, then shook his head.

"Sorry. Woulda pinched it if I'd seen summin fancy like that."

Deciding to ignore Wiggins's last remark, I went on; "Listen. There's someone who keeps leaving strange packages at our door, and I want you to find out who it is. I think I've seen him, or at least someone who works for him, here on Baker Street. If you see him, I want you to follow him, and let me know where he goes."

"Easy," Wiggins said with a shrug. "Wos this fella look like, then?"

"You'll know him when you see him," I said, glancing, nervously up and down the street as I spoke. "He'll be standing not too far away from our door, watching the house. He usually wears a black bowler hat."

"Righ' then," Wiggins said, standing with his shoulders squared before me, a serious expression adorning his face; " 'ow much?"

Realising that I had no money to hand, I removed the carbuncle and rose gold bracelets from around my wrist, and presented them to Wiggins.

"Here," I said, and the astounded boy took the two bracelets, and examined them with wide, delighted eyes. "Do we have a deal?"

Pocketing his loot, Wiggins doffed his cap in a gentlemanly fashion, and then rushed off on his task. As I turned to go back inside the house, however, I suddenly heard the little rogue calling, "An' 'ere, is it true that Mr. 'olmes tried t' jump ou' ov a window?" I closed the door, firmly behind me.

As I passed the sitting room on my way up to my room, I called, "I'll just be upstairs, Watson. There's something I need to do."

"Very well, Miss Winchester," Watson replied, in a slightly strained voice. I looked in to the sitting room to see him heaving Holmes's prostrate form on to the settee. He was unconscious.

"I had to sedate him," Watson explained, noticing me in the doorway. "It was the only way I could stop him calling out to Lestrade. I wonder if I could perhaps get him in to the bath in this state?"

With one last look at the pale, ragged, almost unrecognisable figure of Sherlock Holmes lying on the settee, I stole upstairs to my room, and carefully shut the door behind me. I had decided. I had to know.

Reaching under my bed, I pulled out one of the prettily wrapped packages, and settled myself in the small space between Holmes's case souvenirs that I had picked last time, and proceeded to cautiously unwrap the package just as I had before. Beneath the paper, I found another plain white cardboard box, filled with red tissue paper; and there, nestled in amongst the tissue paper, was another box, but it was quite different to the oddly designed jewellery box that I had found last time. This box was made in the shape of a heart, covered with sapphire blue satin, the lid decorated with glittering, deep blue and crystal white beads. I searched for the handwritten card that had been present last time, and found it, bearing another ominous message; _'You don't seem to have considered my "proposal," so here's another little gift to try and persuade you. Clara Strange was wise to run.'_

My hand trembled as I read the card, for it brought a horrifying realisation rushing in to my mind. This message could only have been sent from the mysterious jewel collector who had attempted to buy the Tsarina Alexandra's necklace from Clara Strange – The very same man who had shadowed Holmes to Strange Hall, and disguised himself under the detective's name; who had plotted with Matthew Blackburn and the assassin Smith to murder Ernest Moore and his daughter, Rebecca; who had ordered Smith to shoot at Holmes through the window of 221b...

And then, a troubling thought occurred to me. All this time, I had assumed that it was Holmes who had been the intended target of the sniper on the day those two bullets had been fired in to the sitting room, just as I had assumed that it was Holmes our invisible fiend had been secretly observing from the village during the Strange Hall case. And yet these sinister gifts – these _warnings _– had not been addressed to him. They had, it seemed, been addressed to me. And what of my being attacked and thrown in to a cupboard onboard a train some weeks ago, when the three of us (Holmes, Watson and myself,) had been travelling with Mycroft up to Gloucestershire to take up the case of Sir Edward Strange? I had never discovered just how that event had happened.

What if, for some unknown reason, _I _was the target of this mysterious criminal mastermind? What if the bullets that had been fired through the window during the events of _'A Study in Scarlet Suitcases' _had been meant for me, and what if my later shooting at the hands of Smith had not been a distraction, performed by the criminal in order for him to make his escape, but a deliberate and planned attempt on my life? What if the presence of Smith's employer in the village of Thorn Acre had been in order for him to observe _me, _and what if the mysterious man in the bowler hat that seemed to be lingering about Baker Street was another of his accomplices, sent to spy on me?

Whether it was all a figment of my imagination, or whether there truly was some monstrous conspiracy lurking about me was yet to be seen, but I opened up the heart shaped box in the hopes of finding a clue to my situation, and felt a fresh wave of dread wash over me. Inside was a small selection of rather expensive looking chocolates...with a green sprig of mistletoe draped over them. There seemed little doubt that the chocolates had been tainted with viscam album, the oil of mistletoe, and the exact same poison which Anna Darby had slipped in to my drink at Strange Hall.

Suddenly, my ears were alerted to the sound of Watson entering his bedroom down the hall, and I stowed the poisoned chocolate box away in my chest of drawers, next to the scarlet jewellery box that contained Rebecca Moore's engagement ring, and made my way downstairs in a daze. What on earth was I to do? This was a mystery that could clearly only be solved with Holmes's expertise, but as I looked at him, still lying unconscious on the settee in his tattered dressing gown, I knew that he was not yet well enough to solve anything. I was alone. What on _earth _was I to do? There seemed only one option. I was in danger here, and the fiend sending the packages clearly wanted me to leave Baker Street. Perhaps, despite Holmes's condition and my overall reluctance to go, it was best to obey?..

As I stared, contemplatively out of the window, however, beholding the sight of Baker Street (a sight which I found I was growing to love more and more each day,) there came a small noise behind me – A noise so soft and so feeble, yet so gallingly powerful, that it was enough to tear the very heart out of me, and change my mind in an instant. Prostrate on the sofa behind me, Sherlock Holmes, still in the depths of his drug-induced slumber, was crying.


	10. Chapter 9

**Note from Agatha: Sorry for the slight wait. The next few chapters are going to be some real face-slappers, and are taking a bit longer to write. Happy Midsummer :)**

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><p><strong>Day Seven: <strong>

From the very day that I had met Sherlock Holmes, I had always suspected that, behind his outward display of cold, calculating logic and steely control, there lurked a much darker but distinctly human element of vulnerability. It is, after all, the most brilliant and specialised of minds (of which Holmes, with all his elaborate complexities and meticulously ordered thought patterns, was undoubtedly one,) that are often the most fragile. During that hideous first week of Holmes's rehabilitation, I saw without a glimmer of doubt just how well-founded my suspicions had been, and I believed that we had truly experienced the worst, and could fall no further from here. I was wrong. For the horrific experience that was to come would see Holmes fully brought to his knees, his powerful dignity all but lost to the cocaine that still held its sway over him; and yet the end of it all was to be a powerful testament to Holmes's inner strength, and a comforting reminder of his humanity. There would be a hopeful light at the end of this dark tunnel – And, with all the unseen dangers that we were yet to discover lurking in the shadows, Holmes, Watson and I would need all the hope that we could find.

Seven days had passed since Holmes had been separated from his cocaine, and he was now in the full, maddening grip of withdrawal. His hallucinations were horrific and more lucid than ever (Watson and I were often pained by the sounds of him screaming at night,) and his cravings for his precious drug clearly left him in blistering agony. And yet he _still _claimed that he was not addicted to the substance that Watson and I occasionally heard him sobbing for, and seemed to believe more strongly than ever that the two of us were subjecting him to a brutal torture, rather than attempting to save his life. Unfortunately, though Holmes's reason had clearly been affected by his cocaine obsession, his deviousness and cunning were apparently intact, and the vile remnant that remained of the great detective was ready to declare war, and would stop at nothing until he had obtained what he believed he so desperately needed. It all started with violin practice...

"_I can't take this anymore, Watson!" _

I stormed down the staircase, and was about the barge through the sitting room door, when Watson rushed up behind me, and hastily pulled me back.

"Don't give him the satisfaction!" he said, earnestly, while I continued to glare in the direction of the sitting room. "You know that this is how he wants you to react; he wants to punish us."

I tried to listen to Watson's words, but I was in agony. In fact, I believe that most of Baker Street was in agony. In what was obviously a fresh attempt to try and force Watson and myself in to giving him his cocaine, Holmes had shut himself in the sitting room, and proceeded to furiously play his violin for nearly three hours, with no signs of stopping. Usually, I found Holmes to be one of the most gifted amateur musicians I had ever heard, but tonight his playing was unquestionably (and, most likely, quite deliberately,) horrendous. The tune coming from the sitting room was incredibly fast paced, with occasional high notes that grated on the ears; the sort of notes that only a violin can produce. It was enough to make me pity the poor, delicate instrument that Holmes was inflicting his anger on.

"_Why _is he doing this, Watson?" I cried, despairingly, not knowing whether to burst in to tears, or tear my hair in fury. "Why can't he just let us help him? Why can't he see that he needs to get better?"

Watson looked, sadly at the sitting room door, and sighed, rolling himself a cigarette with some paper and tobacco that he produced from his pocket (It was a rare event for Watson to smoke, although I had seen him take a cigar every so often after dinner.)

"I am afraid that addiction seldom holds any reason behind it, Miss Winchester," he said, fiddling with the cigarette paper. "A person's actions when under its spell are often nonsensical. It – "

He stopped, and started, violently, dropping his incomplete cigarette to the floor. I looked up in terror, wondering what it was that had frightened him, and saw Mrs. Hudson coming up the stairs with a slip of yellow telegram paper in her hand.

"Mrs. Hudson!" Watson snapped, making towards her to block her path. "I thought I specifically told you not to come upstairs, unless..."

"...Unless you deemed it safe to do so, or unless there was a message from Mr. Mycroft," Mrs. Hudson said, ignoring the doctor's terse attitude, and handing him the telegram. "This arrived a few minutes ago." Here she gave a weary look to the sitting room door, behind which Holmes's violin was still screeching. "I take it he's still feeling no better, Doctor?"

"I'm afraid his illness had made him very agitated, Mrs. Hudson," Watson said, apologetically, flinching as the Stradivarius gave a particularly loud squeal. "You understand what he's like when he's confined to the house without a case."

"Of course, Doctor. I do hope his condition improves."

I watched the old woman retreat back down the stairs, and saw her look up when Watson's back was turned, and show me a knowing smile (I had not told Watson that Mrs. Hudson was aware of the real reason for Holmes's confinement.) Once she was out of sight, I turned to Watson, and peered, questioningly at the telegram in his hands.

"Is it from Mycroft?" I asked, as his eyes scanned the words.

"Yes," Watson said, a slight frown flickering across his face. "He says he wants me to come to Pall Mall straight away. Apparently he wants to discuss Holmes's living arrangements."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise at the message.

"You don't think he wants to move Holmes to Pall Mall to recover?" I said, looking at the telegram myself. I have to admit that I thoroughly disliked the idea; not because I had any doubts about Mycroft's ability to cope with Holmes (during our last meeting with the elder Holmes brother, I had deigned, although the subject had never been directly referred to, that Mycroft had a great many friends and contacts in the British government, and was very well practiced in dealing with matters of high danger and great delicacy,) but because the very idea of removing Holmes from Baker Street seemed somehow cruel, and I had no doubt that he would violently protest. Watson, however, seemed to be of a very different opinion.

"I must admit that it would be a much safer option," he said, tapping, thoughtfully at the yellow paper with his fingers. "No one at the Yard knows Mycroft's address, so there would be no chance of another potential disaster with Lestrade. And I am sure that Mycroft can devote a great deal more time to Holmes than we can, he only ever leaves his rooms to visit the Diogenes Club in Whitehall, and I know for a fact that Holmes would be quite welcome there, if Mycroft felt uneasy about leaving him alone..."

He frowned, deeply, before placing the telegram in his breast pocket.

"I shan't be gone long, Miss Winchester. This is a very important issue, I'd like to see it settled tonight."

"_What?" _I gaped, hastily following him down the stairs. "Watson, you can't leave me alone to take care of Holmes! Holmes and his God damn violin..!"

"Miss Winchester, your language really has been growing increasingly lax lately," Watson chided, as he shrugged on his coat. "Now really, I won't be long. You can call for Mrs. Hudson if you require any help, and I don't think Holmes should be too much trouble. In any case, you know where to find me if things grow desperate – You know Mycroft's address."

I could only watch him take up his hat, and disappear out of the front door, leaving me feeling as though I had been charged with the care of an infant for the night.

Indeed, it seemed as though I genuinely _had _been tasked with caring for a difficult child, for Holmes's musical tantrum continued, relentlessly for the next half of an hour, producing note after ear-splitting note, until finally, I could bear it no more. My blood boiling, I tossed aside the pillow that I had been using to try and muffle the sound of the screaming violin, threw open my bedroom door, marched downstairs, and aimed a kick at the sitting room door. It crashed open, and I fairly screamed Holmes's name;

"_HOLMES!"_

The trembling, bedraggled figure in the middle of the room threw down the Stradivarius, and bolted across to curl up on the settee, clutching one of the cushions to its chest. Holmes looked like a haunted being, white and haggard, with dark grey shadows to his gaunt face, and appeared even to be smaller than he usually was. He was still filthy, and steadfastly refused to take off the purple dressing gown that now bore a fine layer of cigarette ash, along with a large coffee stain on the lapel. He had also, I had noticed, developed a sudden phobia of mirrors. The shaving glass that he kept in his room had been cast out quite brutally, causing it to smash against the sitting room wall, and I had at one point heard him deliberating to himself whether or not he should remove all the reflective materials from the house. The reason for this was obvious – He did not want to see his reflection.

"Get out of here, you wretched child!" Holmes barked, stroking the cushion that he clutched, obsessively. "Go on, go!"

"Not until you've put that God damn violin away!" I said, pointing to the source of my annoyance, which now lay abandoned on the floor. "I know what you're doing, and it's not going to work! So just stop it!"

Holmes glanced at the now silent violin, and sneered.

"How else am I to stave off boredom?" he said, looking at me with those striking eyes that still held every ounce of their deep sarcasm and cold indifference, but a great deal more furious contempt. "I have been denied my work, and now also denied even my tobacco, seeing as you have confiscated my slipper." (In danger of suffocating due to Holmes filling the apartment with toxic fumes from his excessive smoking, I had seen fit to hide the Persian slipper where he stored his tobacco.)

"Don't pretend that this has anything to do with boredom, Holmes!" I said, glaring at him. "You want your cocaine, that's all, and I'm not going to let you have it!"

I saw Holmes grip the cushion in his grasp, as though afraid that I would for some reason snatch it away.

"No, of course not," he said, coldly. "You must take everything from me, mustn't you? Since arriving here, you have taken all but every ounce of trust that my dearest friend had in me, and have marred the peace that I once felt in believing that I had no links – none whatsoever! – to my vile mother; save for brother Mycroft, whose affections you have also wormed your way in to. Indeed, you have charmed yourself with every one of my associates save for myself, as it would appear that I am the only one who can see just what a destructive, cursed child you genuinely are."

My anger was beginning to fade, and in its place I felt a cold uneasiness and a sickening sensation in the pit of my stomach, as I continued to listen, frozen, to Holmes's words;

"Your presence here has brought with it nothing but bad luck. I have found myself embroiled in two cases where I was powerless to prevent the occurrence of four tragic deaths under my very nose – one of which occurred in your very presence! – and it is because of you that I have been reduced to the...inconvenient...state in which I find myself presently."

"Because of _me?_" I could not believe what I was hearing. "Why on earth would you destroy yourself with cocaine because of me?"

Still clutching the cushion, protectively to his chest, Holmes struggled up in to a sitting position on the settee, and looked at me with a terrible expression.

"Because I am _afraid_," he hissed.

For a moment, there was silence, and I merely looked at Holmes in disbelief. At first, I was sure that his words were meant in some way to mock me, but as I looked at his so expressive eyes, I saw not a trace of artifice, and his face was utterly sincere. He really had meant what he had said.

"Afraid?" I said, starting to feel a rather prominent amount of that emotion myself. "Afraid of what?"

Holmes's gaze turned to the dark window, and he shuddered as he clutched his cushion closer to him.

"Of airguns, for one thing," he said, quietly; "But that is only the beginning – The very tip of this great iceberg. Their web spreads far and wide, and their means are infinite. All I can say for certain is that we are surrounded – That there is some sinister force looming about us like a black cloak, concealing itself in the shadows." Here he looked up, his eyes full of fear and accusation as they glared, piercingly at me. "And it is all because of _you_."

The truth suddenly struck me like a lightning bolt, and I stared, incredulously at Holmes.

"You know, don't you?" I said. "You've known all along. You know about the packages that have been sent to me. You know that they were sent by the same person who employed Smith, the man who used your name in Thorn Acre. You know that he sent Smith to kill me, and that he's been sending somebody else to follow me. You've _known _that I was in danger here, all this time!"

"Not only you, Miss Winchester," Holmes whispered, still looking at me with those accusing eyes. "We are all in danger now, every one of us. By coming here, you have placed both myself and Dr. Watson at risk, and I shudder to think of what will happen to poor Mrs. Hudson! Why, _why _did the winds of Fate blow you on to our doorstep? You have invited Death in to this house. Why could you not have stayed away?"

He was growing hysterical, and, despite his cruel, cutting words, and the fact that he obviously blamed me for attracting the shadowy threat that currently surrounded us, I still felt that soft and sympathetic pang of concern for him, and tried to comfort him as he rocked, nervously back and forth on the settee.

"Holmes, I didn't know that – "

"_Get out!" _Holmes roared, hurling the cushion at me. "Get out, get out; and if you have any love for Dr. Watson or even myself at all, you will take your cursed bones, and never come – "

I slammed the sitting room door on the end of his sentence, choking back the stinging tears that I could feel steadily building behind my eyes. A moment later, however, the sound of the tortured violin began again, and my tears instantly evaporated, and were replaced with a bright, boiling sensation of anger. Suddenly desperate to leave the cramped, suffocating house which seemed to have become as a prison to me over the last week, I fled down the stairs, and snatched my dress coat from its hook, shrugging it on as a weary looking Mrs. Hudson emerged from the direction of the kitchen, carrying a glass bottle of aspirin.

"Have you tried reasoning with him, miss?" she asked, rubbing her temple as she looked up the stairs in the direction of the infuriating music.

I made no answer, afraid that if I opened my mouth to speak, the tears that were undoubtedly still lurking, unfelt below the surface would suddenly well up again

"Where are you off to?" the landlady persisted, a note of concern coming in to her voice as she saw me forcing my hands in to my gloves. I turned, fully away, letting a single tear spill over to relieve some of the pressure, as I picked up my cane, and clutched at its mother-of-pearl handle.

"I am going..." I began, slowly, taking deep breaths to keep my voice steady, and so as to keep Mrs. Hudson from realising just how upset I was. The violin upstairs gave a hideous screech, and I gritted my teeth together; "I am going somewhere far away, where even the loudest of violin music cannot be heard!"

And with that, I slammed the door behind me, and stepped out in to the twilight.


	11. Chapter 10

**Note from Agatha: Brace yourselves...**

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><p>To anyone – even a country girl such as myself – London is one of the most extraordinary sights in the world at night. As darkness set in, falling like a piece of black gossamer over the city, candles began to flicker in dirty windows, small coal fires were lit at the corners of streets for ragged beggars to huddle around, and the lamp-lighters on their ladders went about their work, leaving pools of fierce yellow light behind them like footprints, until the whole city seemed bathed in a warm, fiery glow. Raucous music drifted from taverns and bars, and the most unusual people staggered about the streets – Loud women in gypsy garb, bearing boxes and baskets of buttonholes and lucky charms; ageing gentlemen in cheap evening dress, singing a slurred song that cracked and croaked in their brandy-soaked throats; blacksmiths and cobblers and knife-sharpeners, all working at their trades at the side of the road and in doorways; and young boys (and occasionally girls who resembled boys,) offering to groom a horse or carry a load in exchange for a few shillings.<p>

But the most enchanting thing of all was to go beyond the light and the noise of the night time crowds, to where the city was dark and lonely, where no lamps shone, and where all that could be seen was a great expanse of starlit sky above black houses and smoking chimneys, and where moonlight rippled on the brown river. If anyone should ever ask me my favourite place in the world, I believe that I would firmly say that it was the London dockyards at night. Holmes had taken me for a long tour of London shortly after my return from the hospital when I had been shot by Smith, and the star-spangled skies that stretched above the near absolute blackness of the dockyards had reminded me so much of the times my father had taken me stargazing in the hills of Virginia, that I had formed an instant attachment with the place.

It was to the dockyards that I fled that night when Holmes was in his hideous temper, and, leaning over the stone bridge, and looking down in to the murky depths of the Thames, I cried my tears away in to the cold, churning water. As I stood, listening to the gentle sound of the currents lapping against the stone, and inhaling the smell of charcoal and stagnant mud borne on the wind, I thought about Holmes and what he had said, and just what I felt about it all. Of course, I knew that to a certain degree this outburst would be down to his cocaine deprivation; but I also knew that Holmes could be just as mean-spirited and opinionated in his usual state of mind, and the fact that he should blame me for leading these mysterious, dark forces to him, and even for the deaths of Rebecca Moore, Lady Ruth Strange, and Ethel and George Potter, was so fantastic and inexplicable that it made me want to splutter with rage. I, after all, had nearly died twice since I had met him. He was just as much a curse on me as I was on him.

I continued my walk along the row of dark, empty warehouses, past the great, looming shapes of half-completed ships, and came to the conclusion that I had mixed feelings for Sherlock Holmes. On the one hand, he was the most vain, arrogant, patronising, insensitive, self-centred, and generally infuriating man I had ever come across. There was no doubt that he thought himself a great genius tragically surrounded by idiots, and, although I had seen him bring two terrible murderers to justice, on top of which he had sent my much hated and abusive stepmother to prison (a punishment which she richly deserved,) I could not help but feel that he cared nothing for the moral side of his actions, and instead did all these great deeds merely out of his own vanity – to prove his cleverness, and to quell the boredom which he so often felt – rather than out of compassion for others. Sherlock Holmes, for all that he came to the aid of those in distress, was a brain without a heart – A mere automaton.

On the other hand, however, _I _was not. I felt sympathy for his suffering as a child, sorrow over the torture he was now experiencing, and an undeniable admiration for this great and talented man. He had been kind to me (whether he had consciously been so or not,) and given me a bed when I had had nowhere else to go, and for that, I was grateful. My conscience would not allow me to leave him in his time of need over a few snide remarks – And I was also beginning to suspect that the star-filled sky above the dockyard had not been the only thing that had reminded me of my father as I had walked with Holmes that night. And so (with a fair amount of grumbling to myself,) I made my way back to the streets, and started on my way back to Baker Street, ready to face Holmes and help him through his ordeal, whether he wanted (or even deserved) it or not.

I passed behind one of the warehouses, and made my way along a quiet, unlit track towards the stone steps that would lead me back in to the glowing heart of London. I heard several common sounds as I walked – a pair of cats screeching and fighting, a small animal (probably a rat,) shuffling amongst the discarded crates and barrels that littered the alleyway, a hammer steadily beating at an anvil somewhere inside the warehouses – but one sound in particular caught my attention, for it was not a native sound to a shipyard alleyway at night. It was the sound of a small horse and trap, struggling to make its way over the uneven, rubbish-strewn ground behind me. I listened, carefully for a few more moments, before glancing behind me, and found that yes, it _was _a small, shuttered carriage, drawn by a pair of strong, black ponies.

Whether or not it had anything to do with my recent acquaintance with Sherlock Holmes, I found that I had developed a keen sense for danger, and as I continued to walk with growing haste down the alley, the familiar warning sensations began to rise and draw attention to themselves, and I looked again over my shoulder at the carriage. It rather resembled a police wagon – the sort of thing that I had seen Lestrade drive prisoners away in – and the driver had drawn up the collar of his coat, and wrapped a scarf around the lower portion of his face, though it was certainly not a cold night. My heart then lurched in terror as I saw that the driver was also wearing a black bowler hat, and I quickly turned, and began to run up the alley.

Just as I had feared, I heard the driver harshly calling to his horses behind me, and the trap began to race across the sodden earth, snapping planks of rotting wood and crushing twisted scrap metal beneath its wheels. I did not look back. Instead, I focused all my attention on getting to the steps before the trap caught up with me. The sounds of snorting and thundering hooves drew closer and closer to my back, until I could almost hear the champing of the horses on the metal bits in their mouths, and feel their searing breaths pouring down my neck. Though filled with a desperate and pointless desire to turn and look back at my pursuer, I instead threw my cane aside, and charged, head first towards the steps, almost stumbling up them, and jolting forwards as I heard the startled horses neighing and screeching to a stop behind me. Once I had reached the top of the steps, I had thought that I would be safe. I had, of course, forgotten about the driver.

He jumped down from his seat, and made to lunge at me where I had fallen on the last step (my knees buckling from fear,) but, to my complete surprise, a rock suddenly flew through the air, making contact with the man's shoulder. The pair of us looked up, and I almost laughed with relief to see Wiggins standing on the corner of the street with an armful of rocks, testing the weight of one in his hand. He hoisted his arm, and hurled his ammunition at the man, his face contorting with the effort.

"Take _that, _yer dir'y scum!" he hollered, triumphantly, as the man took a step back, and shielded his face from the onslaught. "Go on, 'op it! Git ou' of it!"

With an angry snarl, the man in the bowler hat retreated back down the steps, and leapt back up on to the carriage. There was barely enough room for him to turn about at the end of the alleyway, but he pulled, fiercely at his reins, and urged his horses on, until the trap was clattering away in to the darkness as fast as its wheels could take it. Wiggins laughed, heartily, hurling his last rock after the retreating carriage, and jumping in to the air at the top of the steps in pure exhilaration.

"You alrigh', miss?" he said, wiping a hand on his trousers, and offering it to me.

"How did you know I'd be here?" I asked as I got to my feet, and dusted down my dress.

"You asked me t' follow the bloke. I seen 'im runnin' to 'is 'orse n' cart ' moment 'e saw you comin' ou' of Mr. 'olmes's place. Went all the way round the ship yards 'til 'e came t' that alleyway there, then 'e wai'ed. Reckon 'e'd worked it all ou', 'ow 'e was gonna snatch yer. Didn't see me comin', did 'e?"

Holmes had not selected Wiggins as the head of the Baker Street Irregulars for nothing!

"Did you find out anything else?" I asked, eagerly, thinking what it would be like if I could arrive back at 221b, and announce to Holmes that I knew who our mysterious trackers were.

"S'matter of fact, I did," Wiggins said, proudly, pushing his cap to the back of his head, and jamming his thumbs in to his pockets. "Our gent in the bowler 'at goes t' a pub called _'The 'angman's Tree.' _Rough sorta place. Got meself in there shinin' shoes fer the pun'ers. Anyways, I 'eard 'im say a name at the bar. Whispered it like, t' the landlord, like it wos some sorta code."

"What was the name?"

Wiggins twisted his lips.

"It wos a funny sorta name. Posh, thas fer sure. Like the name of a lord or summin." He leaned forward, intently. "Moriar'y. Moriar-_ty. _Moriarty."

_Moriarty. _That certainly _was _an unusual name. And not one that I had heard before, which for some reason surprised me. It had seemed as though all the clues would suddenly fall in to place once I had learned the name of the organiser behind this fiendish plot, but instead, I was left more puzzled than before. What did this Mr. Moriarty want with me?

"Thank you, Wiggins," I said, deciding that I would share my findings with Holmes on returning to Baker Street, and see if the mysterious name meant anything to him.

"No probl'm, Miss 'arriett," Wiggins said, delving in to his pocket, and fishing out a wedge of toffee, wrapped in brightly coloured paper.

"I see you put those jewels to good use?" I commented, watching him noisily chewing on the sticky sweet, and glimpsing a handful of others as he opened up his pocket to pick out another. Wiggins swallowed hard, before replying;

"Nope. Still got 'em, s'matter of fact."

And he rolled up his sleeve to reveal the two rose gold bracelets I had given him the other day, now fastened around his own wrist. I frowned.

"Then where did you get the toffee?"

"Mr. 'olmes gave me an 'alf crown fer takin' a message to the telegraph office."

An icy cold feeling began to creep in to my stomach, and I grabbed Wiggins's wrist as he raised a second toffee to his mouth, and looked at him, urgently.

"What message?" I pressed. "Was it today?"

" 'bout two hours ago," Wiggins said, surprised, the toffee slipping from between his fingers. " 'e shou'ed it down t' me frough the window, whilst 'e wos playin' 'is violin. I fought it wos a little strange, but 'e said it wos impor'an', so I did it. 'e frew the money down t' me. 'e said 'e wan'ed it sent t' Baker Street, to 221b, wiv the name Mycroft or summin on it..."

That was all I needed to hear. In terror, I sprinted away down the street, and ran as fast as I possibly could – faster than I have ever run in my life – back to Baker Street, uncaring for and unthinking of the many people who stared and shouted after me. I reached the front door, and nearly collided with it, banging, desperately on it like a prisoner in a cell.

"Mrs. Hudson!" I shouted through the door, still furiously hammering at the knocker, and slapping my palm against the wood. "Mrs. Hudson!"

There was silence on the other side – Silence except for a pitiful whining, and a faint scratching at the woodwork.

"Gladstone?" I knelt down and listened to the dog's anxious whimperings and grunts, and realised that something had gone horribly wrong.

Just then, I heard a familiar pair of shoes scuffling on the pavement, and I looked up to see Watson running towards me with a terrified expression on his face.

"That telegram from Mycroft was a fake!" he said, heaving and gasping for breath as he reached the doorstep. "He never wanted to see me! It was a ploy to get me out of the house!"

"I know," I said, looking up at the windows, and feeling a terrible sense of foreboding as I saw only the dim, flickering light of the sitting room fire. "He forced me out of the house too. Watson, something's wrong, Mrs. Hudson isn't answering!"

Taking out his keys, Watson quickly unlocked and threw open the front door, letting out an extremely agitated Gladstone, who was more energetic than I had ever seen him, jumping up and pawing at our legs, meaningfully. We hurried inside, and went immediately to Mrs. Hudson's parlour, where we found the poor lady lying in a deep, unnatural sleep upon her settee. Her hand rested, limply on a nearby side table, where the open bottle of aspirin that I had seen her with earlier sat. Watson picked it up, frowning.

"These aren't aspirin," he said, pouring some of the pills out in to his hand. "These are some of the sedatives that I brought home a few days ago. How on earth did Mrs. Hudson end up with them?"

I already knew the answer as I turned and looked out of the doorway at the foot of the stairs.

"It's alright," Watson said, noticing my look. "I'll see to Mrs. Hudson. You need to check on Holmes."

My heart thudding, I left the parlour without a second glance behind, and saw Gladstone sitting in the middle of the stairs, with an urgent look in his dark brown eyes. I placed my foot on the first stair, and the bulldog barked, and raced up to the landing, looking down at me, earnestly, in a plea for me to follow. Still fearing what I would find, I ran up the seventeen steps, and nearly stumbled over Gladstone, as the dog weaved, eagerly about my feet, urging me towards the closed sitting room door, which he scratched at, anxiously with his paw. There was no noise from within. All was eerily silent.

A truly sickly feeling was beginning to stir within me, and I reached out and tentatively opened the sitting room door just an inch, with Gladstone nosing it open the rest of the way. The fire was burning low, and the room within was dim. Holmes's purple dressing gown lay in a filthy, crumpled heap in the middle of the floor, but there was no sign of the man himself. Then I spotted him, his head just visible as it rested on the carved, wooden edge of the settee. I wanted to say his name, but my tongue seemed to be tied, so I slowly made my way around to the other side of the settee, and drew my breath in horror.

Holmes was lying in a complete, drug-induced stupor, his eyes closed, and his arm hanging, limply over the side of the settee, revealing for the first time the bruised, punctured skin on the crook of his arm, where the cocaine needle had frequently been inserted. I followed the trail of his hand, and felt a stab of hate and loathing within me, as I saw a small syringe lying on the carpet – A dainty little thing that glittered in the firelight, with its piston pressed down like it had been recently used.

"Oh, Holmes," I sighed, sadly, kneeling down, and snapping the needle of the syringe against the wooden arm of the settee, rendering it harmless. It was here, kneeling so close to him, that I noticed just how very still Holmes was...How very silent his breathing sounded...

"Holmes?" I said, as a terrible feeling struck at the heart of me. I pressed my fingers to the cold, clammy skin of his neck, searching for his pulse...and my very insides turned to water as I realised that I couldn't feel anything.

A thousand things seemed to happen at once. There was a dreadful screaming inside my head, my heart seemed to stand still within me, I couldn't breathe, and my throat became tight and closed. I could barely move, but I somehow managed to stagger to my feet, and clutched, wildly at the mantelpiece. I couldn't see anymore, I couldn't _think _anymore, but somewhere, _somewhere _in the dark, whirling depths of my mind, where a hundred voices seemed to be shouting, but nothing really seemed to be happening, a thought finally made itself known. And I did the only thing that I seemed capable of doing...

I ran to the staircase, and screamed for Watson.


	12. Chapter 11

**Note from Agatha: Hello? Anybody still there? :) Sorry this took so long, have been so distracted lately, I practically forgot I'd even written this story! Penultimate chapter.**

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><p>I tried to breathe through the curtain of tears that threatened to drown me as Watson came bounding up the stairs.<p>

"What is it?" he asked, desperately, grabbing my upper arms and shaking me, almost a little too violently. "What's happened?"

Unable to speak, and still struggling to catch my breath, I simply pointed to the settee where Holmes lay, still silent and motionless. Never have I seen Watson's face turn so white – Indeed, I feared for a moment that the sudden drop of blood pressure would be too much for him, and that he would either pass out or die right in front of me.

"Dear God!" he murmured as he rushed over to Holmes, but his murmur soon turned to a despairing shout; "Oh, dear God, dear _God!_"

I had thought up until that moment that nothing could have been more horrific or more disturbing for me than that evening when I had seen Holmes in his drug-induced mania. But, faced with the lifeless form of Sherlock Holmes now lying cold and unspeakably pale upon the settee, a hypodermic syringe within his reach, it crossed my mind that I would happily have lived through that earlier horrifying scene a thousand times over, if only it could have prevented _this_...Anything but _this!_...

"Right," Watson said, transferring Holmes from the settee on to the floor with the swift air of a professional; "We need some air in here. Miss Winchester, open the window."

Watson's medical mind had clearly taken over, but his distress was also painfully prevalent, his hands trembling and desperately gripping at Holmes as he held him on the floor. Vaguely, I registered that he had given me an order, and I stumbled over to the window and threw up the sash, taking in a great lungfull of much needed air myself. Meanwhile, the doctor was urgently calling Holmes's name and pinching his palms, searching for any signs of a response. There was nothing. Not the slightest flicker of life. I held my breath as Watson lowered his head to Holmes's chest, and a look of pure horror crossed his features.

"He's not breathing," he said, looking up at me with despairing eyes.

A strangled sob escaped from my throat, but I quickly clapped my hand over my mouth, fearing that I was going to be sick. There was only one person, and one person alone, who was responsible for this catastrophe...Myself. I had left Holmes alone to kill himself with that vile drug. Watson had been lured away, but I myself had left of my own accord, by my own free will, for no reason other than my anger with Holmes...If tonight should be his death, then my hands would be the ones that bore his blood...

As I stood, reeling from the horror of it all, Watson opened up the front of Holmes's shirt, and began compressing his heart, desperately trying to get his pulse moving again. My mind was now so absent with fear that I chewed on my fingers like a frightened child, watching and praying as Watson continually dropped his head to Holmes's chest, listening for the beautiful sound of a breathe or a heartbeat.

"Not today, old friend," he muttered, continuing to compress Holmes's heart, for there were still no stirrings of life. "Not today, I tell you!"

The world was a blur, and the firelight became an amber smudge as my eyes brimmed with tears, and I turned, resolutely away from the terrible sight that lay on the floor beside the settee, and began to pace, anxiously up and down the room, sobbing uncontrolablly. All I could think of was that if Holmes was dead, then _I _had killed him, and I was just as despicable a murderer as the assassin Smith, or the delusional Anna Darby...

Although I did not turn back to the settee, I could hear that Watson was beginning to despair in his efforts to stir Holmes's heart in to life. Never before had I heard the good doctor cry, and it was a sound that I never wanted to hear again.

"Holmes, _please!_" he begged, fighting back the tears that were so prominent in his voice, and stooping down once more to listen for Holmes's heartbeat.

This was our last chance, I realised. If Holmes did not come back now, then he would never come back, and I would forever have to carry the weight of his death upon my shoulders, and live the rest of my life with a bleeding conscience...

"Miss Winchester, my bag!"

I started, and looked round at Watson, who was gesturing, urgently to me, renewed hope in his features.

"Miss Winchester, my bag, quickly!"

My heart jumped, and I looked, frantically about me for Watson's doctor's bag, and saw it close to the sitting room doorway. Rushing over and grabbing it, I practically threw the bag to Watson, who began hastily riffling through it, muttering continuously to himself as he did so, and finally took out a small bottle of smelling salts. I leaned over the back of the settee, staring, fixedly down at Holmes, and waiting for any sign, any movement...I thought that I would die when I noticed his eyelids beginning to flutter...

Suddenly, a great hissing noise erupted from Holmes's throat. His body convulsed, his eyes opened wide, he reached up as though reaching for life, and rolled over on to his side to be violently sick upon the floor. And yet, oh, how my heart rejoiced at the sight! I instantly ran forward, wiping my tear stained face, and collapsed on to my knees beside Holmes. At the same moment, Watson leapt up.

"Stay with him, Miss Winchester," he said, his medical mind now having completely taken over. "I need to see to Mrs. Hudson, and fetch some hot water. Just make sure he's comfortable."

Having not yet regained my voice, I simply nodded. All was silent for a minute or so while I sat beside Holmes, as though keeping guard, watching him taking deep, labouring breaths, and cherishing the sound of each one, counting the steady rhythm of his chest as it slowly rose and fell. After glancing about a little at his surroundings, and spluttering a few coughs, Holmes eventually seemed to realise where he was, and squinted up at me.

"Miss Winchester?" he said, in a slightly unsure voice, as though trying to remember whether that was in fact my name.

"Mr. Holmes," I said, looking back at him; "You are just about the most idiotic genius I have ever met!"

Holmes looked, blankly at me for a moment, before the faintest trace of a smile touched the corner of his mouth.

"I do believe Fate blew you on to our doorstep for a reason, Miss Winchester," he said, resting his head back down on the carpet, and I smirked and shook my head as I realised that this was the closest thing to an apology for his spiteful rant of earlier that evening that I would ever receive.

It was at that moment that I suddenly remembered that Watson and I had disposed of Holmes's entire cocaine supply a week ago, when this whole dreadful business had began, and there should not have been syringe or a single drop of the drug left in the apartment. We had searched thoroughly, leaving no drawer unemptied, and no box unchecked. Where, then, had this little bottle of disaster been hiding?

The answer came as I glanced, briefly around the room. I caught sight of the cushion Holmes had been clutching so obsessively earlier, lying flat on the settee. Its seams had been torn apart, so that the white stuffing within was exposed, and there, nestled in amongst the stuffing, was something small and very shiny. I reached inside the cushion, and drew out, clasped between my forefinger and thumb, a tiny bottle of cocaine solution. Realisation dawned.

"Holmes!" I said, exasperatedly, showing him the cushion and the small phial of cocaine. "You've been hiding this all week, haven't you? You were just waiting for the moment when you could get Watson and I to leave the house!"

Holmes's deep grey eyes – now almost black in the rich, dim light of the room – flitted towards the bottle of cocaine in my hand, and my heart almost burst with gladness and relief as I saw a brief look of disgust cross his face, and he pushed the bottle away.

"Whether you believe my word or not, Miss Winchester, that was not the case," he said, settling himself in to a more comfortable position. "I knew that on your search of the rooms, both you and Watson had failed to discover the cocaine and syringe I had hidden in one of the cushions upon the settee. The idea came to me after we returned from Strange Hall, after I had discovered the Tsarina Alexandra's jewels hidden in one of Miss Anna Darby's embroidered cushions. Watson has attempted to confiscate my cocaine before, you see.

Whilst it was true that I could not take the substance with either of you here, I also felt that there was...perhaps...some nugget of truth in your insistences that I was addicted to the substance, and endangering my life. More importantly, I felt that it was indeed beginning to affect my deductive faculties." He shifted slightly on the carpet. "I set myself a test. Either I would be able to resist the cocaine that I knew was still hidden away, and prove your fears to be completely unfounded, or..."

He stopped, leaving his sentence unfinished, but I smiled at the courage he had obviously gathered in order to look honestly at himself. At last, Holmes had acknowledged that he could no longer control his want for cocaine – And, having acknowledged his addiction, he could now actively seek to overcome it.

"My test seems to have unearthed some rather intriguing results," Holmes went on, glancing down at his dirty and bedraggled body, "and I believe that those results must be acted upon immediately. However, in the meantime, there is something that I would like you to do for me, Miss Winchester?"

"Which is?" I asked.

"Get my corn cob pipe down from the mantelpiece, and retrieve the tobacco slipper from wherever you have concealed it."

I sighed, and shook my head. Some things, I would just have to accept, would never change.


	13. Chapter 12

By the following morning, we had successfully revived Mrs. Hudson from her drug-induced sleep, and thoroughly cleaned the apartment from top to bottom. It was almost astounding to be able to smell clean air again, without the stagnant, grey fog of tobacco smoke lingering about the place, and without muddy brown coffee stains and acrid smelling chemical stains covering every surface. Holmes had also changed his clothes and taken his first bath in days, and, although his face was still rather sickly and gaunt looking, and he was still noticeably frail, he looked more like himself than he had for the past eight days. He was even able to send a note to Lestrade, apologising for his odd behaviour of late, and saying that he had been very ill (I have reason to believe that Lestrade still has that note safely tucked away in some drawer somewhere, so that he may produce it as proof, should anyone ever doubt him when he boasts that he was one of the few men that Sherlock Holmes ever apologised to.)

Mycroft joined us for lunch that day (I remember how elated Watson was that the elder Holmes brother finally seemed to be stirring outside his house a little more, and taking some much needed exercise,) though his primary reason for visiting seemed only to be to scold and make jibes at his younger brother.

"So it took the near termination of your life in order for you to see sense then, did it, Sherlock?" he said with a short laugh, cutting as his roast beef as though he were a doctor performing surgery. "Quite honestly, I can't say that I'm surprised!"

"I have never been quite as rationally minded as you, Brother Mine, I will always admit that," Holmes said, evenly, sitting at the table wrapped in a woollen blanket, and completely ignoring the magnificent feast that Mrs. Hudson had prepared for us. "Though I fancy that I have a touch more imagination. And a great deal more ambition for my life's work."

"Eat your lunch, you little whelp."

I snorted and smirked in to my water cup.

That evening, an unseasonal chill set in, bringing with it one of the cold, grey mists that so often seemed to cloak London, and which were both ugly and beautiful at the same time. Mrs. Hudson kindled a cheerful fire in the grate, and our sitting room seemed to glow with the fiery warmth of a ruby compared to the bleakness and greyness outside. Despite our comfort, however, Holmes seemed far from content.

"Watson, will you please cease mollycoddling me?" he said, squirming on the settee as Watson attempted to place an extra blanket over him. "You have no reason at all to be concerned, I'm fine!"

"Holmes, you're barely taking any food, and your temperature is appallingly high," Watson said, sternly. "Your body is most likely still in shock from your accident of last night." (It seemed to soothe the doctor somewhat to refer to Holmes's near death experience as an 'accident.')

"If my temperature is so alarming, dear doctor, then why are you attempting to mummify me in a thousand blankets?" Holmes protested, kicking some of the offensive woollen articles to the floor. "I dread to think what you would prescribe to a patient with a severe nervous condition! Perhaps a spell of lion taming, followed by a death-defying leap in a barrel from the top of the Niagara Falls..?"

"You've reached your crisis point," Watson snapped, while I concealed my face behind my book in order to hide my shameful grin. "In a few minutes, your body temperature will drop dramatically in an attempt to break the fever. We need to regulate your temperature so that it doesn't drop too low..._Will you please keep still?_"

"If I'm to simply lie here waiting for my fever to break, then I would like something to read."

I savagely bit my lip and choked back my laughter, as Watson gave a great, long-suffering sigh.

"Very well," he said, wearily. "Miss Winchester, would you mind collecting Holmes's evening papers from the newsstand at the end of the road, while I find a bottle of cooling medicine?"

It was a few seconds before I was able to suitably compose my face, and peer out from behind my book.

"Hm?"

"Dr. Watson would like for you to stop cackling behind your book, Miss Winchester, and fetch my evening papers from the newsstand," Holmes repeated, batting away Watson's hand as the doctor tried to gauge his temperature. Then he added, in a manner I could almost have mistaken for concern, "Be sure to take Gladstone with you."

The bulldog, however, had evidently caught sight of the drear, misty night outside the window, and had no intention of stepping out in to it. With a grunt, he took up the corner of his blanket in his mouth, and retreated quickly from the sitting room, waddling off downstairs to Mrs. Hudson's parlour.

"I'll be alright, Holmes," I said, smiling a little after the escaping Gladstone. "I'll just get my cloak from my room."

I went upstairs, and retrieved my black cloak from where it lay over my bedpost, and was just about to leave my room to head out in to the night, when my foot suddenly came in to contact with something that rustled as it moved. Looking down, I saw that I had nudged the third and final mysterious parcel out from under my bed. The sight of it somewhat surprised me, for the whole dreadful business of last night had made me forget all about the parcels, and even about the man in the bowler hat who had chased me down at the dockyards in that little shuttered carriage. I had meant to ask Holmes if he knew anything of this man Moriarty, who seemed to be at the centre of the whole strange business; but all of that seemed unimportant now. What mattered was that Holmes recovered, and never went back to his ruinous cocaine habit again. Still, I felt that I could not simply leave the last package unopened (though I knew that it would undoubtedly contain something unpleasant,) and decided to see what this peculiar Mr. Moriarty had sent for me this time. I took up the parcel, sat down on my bed, and pulled off the paper.

The first thing that I noticed was the colour of the box. Though the last two items had been delivered in white cardboard boxes, this box, I was somewhat disturbed to see (for it undoubtedly held some meaning behind it,) was coal black. Lifting the lid, I found not layers of scarlet tissue paper, but a single piece of bright, ruby red silk, on top of which was laid a peculiar rose – Peculiar because the petals had been painted a mournful black, and the thick stem sported several large, curved thorns. Around the stem, fastened with a length of black ribbon, was another note, written in that same hand, and in that same sweet yet sinister manner. I carefully unfastened the ribbon from around the thorny stem, and read Moriarty's message; _'My patience is wearing thin, my dear. Won't you run away?'_

By now, however, I was no longer frightened by the warnings that the parcels contained. In fact, where Moriarty's messages had once inspired a great fear and horror within me, I now felt only a fierce wave of anger, and an annoyance at this continuing, silly game. Fetching the pen from my inkwell set that sat on the little table beneath my mirror, I scrawled a large, defiant _'NO' _on the back of the note, and then, as an afterthought, tore a clump of black petals away in my hand. I then threw on my cloak, made my way downstairs, and stole out in to the dank, dreary evening, uncaring for and unthinking of any dangers that may have been lurking in that fine, grey mist that hung about the streets like the returning spirits of the dead. After all, this shadow of a man – this _Moriarty_ – did not even have the courage to show me his own face, or even to tell me directly just why he seemed so desperate to remove me from Baker Street. What should I have to fear from a faceless name that did its work by sending crude brutes as its agents, or by leaving cryptic packages at a door, like a child's practical joke? I dropped the petals and the crumpled note to the ground.

I picked up Holmes's enormous stack of pre-ordered evening papers from the little newsstand at the end of Baker Street, which was run by a quiet, sober, wooden-legged man. I handed him my coins, at which he grunted an acknowledgment, before proceeding to fold up his little wooden stall for the night. Up and down Baker Street, signs of life were dying. Windows were being shuttered, footsteps were echoing away in to the distance, and the sky was growing ever darker – It was quite possibly the darkest night I had yet seen in London. The chill mist meant that very few souls had decided to wander out that evening, although I was occasionally startled as I suddenly caught sight of a slouched black figure huddled in a black doorway, or as I heard a distant, frantic clanging, far away in the mist, which was eventually revealed to be only an elderly beggar woman, rattling her tin cup.

As I walked through that lonely night, I began to feel uneasy, and I regretted not coercing the reluctant Gladstone in to coming out with me (despite the fact that I was only a mere three minutes or so from our door.) The more I strained my ears to listen, the more convinced I became that I could hear the sound of soft, creeping footfalls somewhere up the street behind me, being careful to step in time with my own strides so as to disguise the sound of their own. At first, I did not bother to look back at the noise, for I convinced myself that I was merely imagining it on a dark, misted night, on a deserted street. As I continued to walk, however, I grew suspicious, and slowed down a fraction. Had I just heard the slight scuffle of a pair of feet quickly changing their pace? I could not be certain, so I walked a short distance more, and then came to a sudden stop, listening, intently. There, as clear as the sound of a bell ringing out through the still night air, I heard a light footstep, one that was out of sync with my own. I quickly turned around, but could only see a few yards behind me because of the mist. There was not a soul in sight.

Strangely, I did not feel afraid at the sound of the ghostly footsteps – Only alert. My entire mindset was directed towards protecting and helping Holmes through his recovery (which I could certainly not do if I was kidnapped,) and I was not worried for my own safety. Deciding to play this villain at his own game, I quickly darted across the street, and concealed myself in a small alleyway between the wine merchant's and the florist's shop, waiting and listening for the sound of following footsteps. There were none. Seeking to confuse my pursuer even more, I ran as loudly as I could a few yards in the opposite direction, before silently turning and making my way back in the direction of 221b, not allowing him to hear my retreating footsteps.

By now, I fancied that I had my invisible tracker (if, indeed, there even was one, and I was not just imagining it all,) thoroughly lost in the mist, and I proudly and without fear began to walk towards the glowing fanlight on 221b, which shone on to the glistening, damp cobbles beneath my boots. Glancing down, I noticed just how clean those cobbles were. There was no sign of the note and black rose petals that I had dropped earlier. Someone had picked them up...

In a flash, a black cloth sack had closed over my head, and I felt my feet being lifted off the ground. The stack of papers fell from my grasp as I writhed and struggled against the strong arms that I could feel threatening to crush me on either side, and I abandoned every ladylike custom, and shrieked and screamed until my throat was soar, and I kicked, wildly so that my skirts were most likely flying about my knees. My boot finally came in to contact with something, and a rough voice swore loudly, just as I heard a new set of footsteps arrive on the scene. These footsteps I recognised...

_"Get away, you rogues!"_ Watson's voice barked, fiercely, but the men who had hold of me were beginning to drag me across the pavement, kicking my ankles so as to make me move. Then, I felt a heavy weight collapse beside me, followed by a groan of pain.

"Appalling," came Holmes's sardonic tones from somewhere in front of me. "A completely blind and rather predictable right swing, very easily blocked, my dear fellow."

"_Holmes!" _I called, desperately, attempting to rip the black bag off of my head, but a harsh hand forced it back down, and I screamed and choked as I felt myself being flung over a broad, bony shoulder.

"Git in the cart, ye little brat!" a course, Scottish accent snarled, and I was suddenly thrown in to an unnatural darkness that could be seen even through the black sack that covered my vision, and landed with a painful bump on to a wooden surface, smelling distinctly of straw and lamp oil.

There was a slam and a clink, followed by the sound of angry fists beating on the other side of a door, and I finally pulled the black bag off of my head to see that I was inside a small, shuttered carriage, with an unlit iron lamp swinging above me in the darkness, the oil dripping down on to my dress. My brave scorn of earlier had faded rapidly, and I crawled, desperately to the bolted doors of the carriage (on the other side of which I could hear a savage fist fight taking place,) and banged and rattled at them, sobbing like a child.

"Let her go, you curs!" I heard Holmes bellowing, furiously.

"Holmes!" I shrieked, still in tears, beating my palms against the wooden doors. "Holmes, help me!"

The doors shook suddenly, as though someone were desperately trying to force them open, but a moment later, I felt a savage jolt beneath me, and there came the rattling of wheels as the carriage began to move. The doors still shook, and I realised that Holmes was running with the carriage, clinging to the back doors, and still trying to break them open. Suddenly, I was thrown across the wooden floor, as the trap swerved about a corner, and began to jolt and bump across the cobbles at breakneck speed. I knew that Holmes would not be able to hold on, and so did not stir from the dank little corner in which I had landed. Instead, I curled up in the darkness, and cried, bitterly, as I listened to Holmes's angry and despairing shouts shrinking in to the distance;

"_No!...No!..."_

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><p><strong>Note from Agatha: Yep, I really am leaving it there! Sorry for the evilness :D The next story will be called 'The Night of Fear' (Those of you who have been following the dates will have noticed that we are now one day away from the beginning of 'The Final Problem.' Dun Dun DUUUUN!) Thank you so much for reading, and for all the comments. x <strong>


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